


All you did was save my life

by allofspace



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blowjobs, Coming Out, Drug Addiction, Drug Withdrawal, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Pining, Pseudo-Incest, also ignores tyler events, alternate ending to season 2 sort of, jess/alex as a side pairing, mention of zach/alex, practically impossible to avoid that issue i guess lol, starts at spring fling dance, vague descriptions of sex, zach is a fifth wheel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 22:53:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14757819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allofspace/pseuds/allofspace
Summary: Clay finds out Justin is using again.. because it's the only way to explain Justin kissing him at the dance.





	1. Not Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> Clay x Justin fanmix: https://8tracks.com/allofspace/i-need-you

Justin didn’t know why he did it. He could blame it on the H, or that Jessica was kissing Alex, or that Bryce was here and he didn’t know how to deal with that. But when Bryce walked away, telling Clay he needed to get laid, just like Justin had, it pissed him off. Justin knew why he himself had said it, watched Clay flounder and completely miss Justin’s flirtation. But Bryce repeating his words… it wasn’t fair. So he’d leaned over to Clay, planning to just let him know he was going outside or taking a walk or something, and instead he’d leaned in and kissed Clay. And Justin had braced himself to get punched or pushed, but when he leaned back, barely able to look at Clay to see his face… Clay just looked confused. When the shock must have worn off, Clay looked around, then looked relieved that no one had seemed to notice the kiss in the dark room with the loud music booming around them. 

Then came the anger. “What the fuck?” Clay asked. “Are you fucking high?”

And well, shit, Justin hadn’t been expecting that. “What?” Justin asked. He didn’t want to say yes just so Clay could brush it off and blame the heroin. But he didn’t want to lie either, to act indignant and then have to have the conversation about why the fuck he would have kissed him. Apparently his lack of response was answer enough for Clay. 

“Come on,” Clay said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him all the way out of the school. 

Once the cool night air hit Justin, he pulled his arm briskly away from Clay’s hold. Clay whipped around to look at him with his most stern and uptight face, but the watery eyes were what got to Justin. He rolled his eyes dramatically and sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s fucking hard quitting.”

“Yeah! That’s why they call it an addiction.” Clay’s eyes were wide and he kept flailing his arms and half turning away before turning back to look at Justin. Justin just waited, hands in pocket, watching Clay. 

“I get it. I get that it’s hard,” Clay said, seeming like he was trying to calm himself down mostly. “But that’s… that’s why you have meetings! And like, you’re supposed to try harder. You’ve got to try harder, Justin.” Clay squeezed his eyes shut tight. 

“I’m sorry,” Justin said, meaning it more now. He hated seeing Clay like this. And he knew everything he and his parents had done for him was so fucking nice. But that made it worse. “It’s not just like… I don’t do it to get away from just the bad stuff. It’s the good stuff too. Like it makes me feel sick to feel happy or even okay. I can’t live with that shit. I shouldn’t get to feel okay.” Justin hadn’t realized when he’d started to cry in the middle of that, but he felt the tears collect at his chin and fall to the ground. 

Clay’s hands were in fists and he was breathing heavily. Justin couldn’t help but flinch when Clay came towards him, but Clay just enveloped him in a hug. After a couple of seconds when Clay still wasn’t letting go, Justin hugged Clay back, and after a few seconds more, Justin squeezed hard and never wanted to let go. 

He didn’t know how long they stayed there like that, but Clay was the one to backup first. “Let’s go home,” he said softly, and guided Justin with a hand to the small of his back. 

The next day, Justin woke up so fucking tired. Clay had kept him up late, making him throw away all the works for using H (not that it had stopped him the last time), and making a “plan” for Justin. 

Justin woke up on Clay’s bed, and Clay was nowhere to be found, just a pile of sheets and blankets from where he’d slept on the floor. 

When Clay came back into the room, he was carrying two mugs of coffee and a plate stacked high with buttered toast. “Figured you’d need this,” he said, putting everything down on his desk, then handing Justin a mug and a piece of toast.

Justin’s stomach rumbled and turned, he didn’t know if he’d even be able to keep toast down but he’d try. The coffee was good though, burning down the back of his throat. “Thanks.”

“I convinced my parents to go out of town for the weekend, to like work on their relationship and stuff. So… detox weekend.”

“You aren’t going to tell them?”

“No, Justin. We’re… brothers now. But I will tell them if you pull this shit again.”

“Right...” Justin knew he did a terrible job of hiding the bitterness in his voice. The thought made him feel even more sick. As if it hadn’t taken him the whole time in juvie to come to terms with his feelings for Clay, now they were “brothers” which simultaneously saved him and fucked him up even more.

Clay looked confused but didn’t push with any questions. He probably thought Justin was being ungrateful.

“Okay. Well, I’m going to call Sherri, see if she can come over and help.”

“No. Please don’t. You can take care of me, right?” Justin didn’t need more people knowing about his slip up, making him feel guilty or pitying him.

Clay took a breath and clenched his jaw, in that way where Justin could see the muscles move under his skin. Then he sighed in a defeated sort of way. “Fine. At least I don’t have to worry about you running away this time.”

Justin gave a small laugh. It was funny how much things had changed since the last time. 

“Wait. I don’t, right?” Clay asked in honest concern. 

“Dude, no!” Justin said exasperated, throwing a pillow from the bed at Clay. 

Justin felt fine for most of the day, so he and Clay had just hung out in Clay’s room reading comics and playing video games. It was weird to think it was sort of their room now. They hadn’t really sorted out sleeping arrangements yet, since the Jensens didn’t have a spare room. There was talk of getting a second bed and all that, but things had been busy. So Justin had taken to sleeping on the floor, and then Clay suggested they take turns sleeping on the floor because he’s just too fucking nice like that. 

“How many times have you done it since you got out?” Clay asked, not looking up from his computer. 

“Just… just the once.” Although Justin had wanted to go to the dance, the prospect of it had been a little too much to handle. Or at least that’s the excuse he used. The truth was even though it was out of his system, that didn’t make him want it less. Sure, he knew all the consequences of it, but the numbness it provided outweighed the bad shit most of the time. 

“Well it says here, the detox shouldn’t be as bad this time around.”

Clay was Googling again. 

Justin threw another pillow at Clay. “No more Google. It’s like… when you look up symptoms and all the answers tell you that you’re dying.”

Clay at least laughed at that. “Except this is actually good news.”

Later that night, the withdrawal got worse. But Clay had been right, and although it fucking sucked, it wasn’t as bad as the previous time. The night felt long but it passed in a blur of Clay bringing him toast and Gatorade and blankets and a bucket for the vomit. And then he slept. For a long time apparently, because he woke up Sunday afternoon. Clay was at his computer, but as Justin stirred awake, Clay came to sit beside him on the bed. 

“Hey,” he said, with a hand softly resting on Justin’s leg. 

“Mmm,” Justin mumbled. The nausea was gone, but his body ached from the fever and the vomiting from the night before. 

“How are you feeling?” Clay asked. 

“Coffee,” Justin replied. “Please.”

Justin almost regretted asking for it when Clay’s hand disappeared from his leg and his weight disappeared from the bed. But once he was able to drink the fresh, hot coffee, he felt a bit better. 

“What time is it?” Justin asked, groggily. 

Clay checked his watch. “2 PM.”

“Shit. Well, I think it’s over at least.”

“Good.” Clay started grabbing clothes from the dresser drawer that was now designated for Justin. He threw the clothes onto the bed. “Shower. Get dressed. You’re going to a meeting.”

Justin thought about putting up a fight, but figured that would take more energy than just doing what Clay asked. 

On Monday, Justin still felt tired and his body ached, but he didn’t want to give the Jensens any reason to be suspicious so he got ready with Clay and they went to school. 

“I don’t know why I’m bothering, I doubt I’ll be able to graduate on time,” he said to Clay in the car. 

“There’s summer classes and stuff. Talk to the new guidance counselor, she’ll probably be able to help you out.” Clay didn’t even sound all that convinced. 

“They won’t want to help me,” Justin said quietly. 

“No. Stop. You can’t just give up before you even try,” Clay said, visibly tightening his grip on the steering wheel. “And if you can’t graduate, then you just graduate next year.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because we’re brothers now,” Clay said matter-of-factly. It made Justin’s stomach twist. That word wasn’t getting any easier to handle, it was actually just getting worse and worse. 

“Whatever,” Justin replied. He hated the thought of staying another year in that school. But he also didn’t want to be a burnout, he wanted to graduate. He would do what he could to make that happen.

The day felt long. Trying to figure out what the hell they were talking about in his classes, getting called into the counselor’s office, getting all sorts of extra assignments to “help” him graduate, plus all the people who still stared at him. As if there weren’t way more interesting things to talk about. At least Bryce was gone now. 

At the end of the day, Justin was heading out to the parking lot to meet up with Clay. Some jock he’d known from his football days, but couldn’t care to remember the name of, fell into step beside him. He asked a lot of annoying questions and Justin had to try pretty hard to keep from just pushing the kid. 

“What was juvie like?” Fucking awful.  
“Are you going to play football this year?” Fuck no.  
“Is it true you were homeless?” Go fuck yourself.  
“Did you really get adopted? You’re like, brothers with that Jensen guy now?”

Justin couldn’t help it. He had the kid smashed against a locker quick, holding the lapels of his letterman jacket. “He’s not my brother!” With another quick shove, he let the kid go. Other students stared. Justin B-lined for the doors. 

He got to the car before Clay and waited. When he finally showed up, he looked pissed. 

“What’s up with you?” Justin asked. Clay didn’t respond. 

Clay stayed silent the whole drive, which thankfully wasn’t very long. 

When they got home, Clay rushed up the stairs to their room and Justin followed behind slowly. 

Clay was at his desk, and Justin collapsed onto the bed. 

“Dude, seriously. What’s up with you?” Justin asked. Clay got uptight about things so easily. 

“Why did you agree to being adopted if it’s not what you wanted?” he asked as he spun his chair to look at Justin. 

“What?”

“Whenever I’ve said the word ‘brother’ to you – see! You just flinched! – You get all weird! And I saw your little outburst in the hall. Why does it bother you so much? I thought you wanted this.”

“Of course I wanted this! I wanted a family. I wanted somewhere to fucking live.”

“Is that it? You wanted somewhere to live and had to take what you could get?”

“No! Fuck, no. Your parents are amazing. I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t want this. I just… I don’t want to think of you as my brother.” Justin didn’t know how else to explain it. Things had been going so well, he was so worried about fucking things up, but it’s all he ever seemed to do. 

“Oh great, so it’s just me you have a problem with.”

“Oh my god, Clay, stop being so dramatic,” Justin said. 

Clay looked offended at that, but clenched his jaw and waited. Justin sighed. 

“Fine. You want to do this? That night at the dance. I didn’t kiss you because I was fucking high, I kissed you because I wanted to. The high just made it easier.”

Clay was frozen, eyes wide.

“I had a lot of time to think when I was in juvie, like how you were what I missed the most. And that I apparently really fucking like you. And then I get out and your family fucking adopts me. Which, again, I’m super fucking grateful for, but being your… you being a part of my family really fucks that stuff up that I had figured out.”

Clay’s face was morphing into a lot of different expressions, each time he looked like he might say something and then didn’t. 

Justin just laid back further on the bed and waited. 

“What?” Clay finally asks, minutes later and sounding incredulous. 

“Really?” Justin said. “That’s all you’ve got after whatever the hell just happened up in that big brain of yours?”

“Well,” Clay spoke slowly. “You had a lot more time to process this information.”

“Well,” Justin said, copying Clay. “I’m gonna go grab some food from the kitchen.”

Justin thought he should be freaking out more, but he actually felt pretty good. Maybe it was true what adults were always saying about how sharing your feelings makes you feel better. It would seem that it wasn’t total bullshit. 

He went to the kitchen and started opening cupboards to see what he felt like. Clay’s parents would be home soon and make dinner or, more likely, bring in takeout. He settled on crackers and peanut butter, something he hadn’t eaten in years. 

He hadn’t heard Clay come down the stairs, but suddenly there was a hand on Justin’s wrist. He turned, looking down at Clay’s hand on his wrist and up to his face. He barely had a second to process what was going on before Clay was kissing him. And it took another second for Justin’s brain to catch up and kiss Clay back, carefully. The kiss was soft and slow and exploring and so fucking good. Justin tried hard to hold back, to let Clay lead and set the pace for them. Justin’s hands went to Clay’s hips. 

They both stood lazily, leaning against the counter, bodies barely touching, when Clay finally pulled back. Justin wished he wouldn’t, that he could live in that moment forever and not have to deal with school or life or anything but Clay ever again. Clay’s lips were wet and his cheeks were flushed.

“Fuck,” Clay said. 

“Good, right?” Justin said with his most flirtatious smile. 

“No! I mean… yes, but… shit. This is like, super fucked up right?” Clay ran a hand through his hair. 

“Some people might think that. But fuck them, right?”

Clay didn’t seem convinced. 

“I’ll get your parents to like un-adopt me or something. I’ll figure something else out.”

“No,” Clay replied quickly. “You are definitely not doing that.”

“Okay,” Justin said. 

“Okay,” Clay said. They were still standing close and Justin wanted to start kissing Clay again, to make him stop worrying, to stop all the thoughts that must be running through his mind. 

The front door opened suddenly, and the boys jumped apart. Clay’s dad walked into the kitchen. “Oh hey guys. Hungry? Your mom’s on the way with food from that new Thai place.”

Clay looked like a deer in headlights. 

“Yeah. Super hungry. That sounds great. We’ll go… get ready for dinner,” Justin said. 

He grabbed Clay’s wrist as he walked by and dragged him back upstairs, crackers and peanut butter forgotten. 

They only had a couple minutes for Clay to regroup before his mom had come home and called them down for dinner. The Jensens insisted on telling the boys all about their couples’ retreat on the weekend, and thanked Clay for getting them to go. They ended up having a ‘family move night’, which Justin normally loved, but tonight it just made him antsy. He hoped Clay wasn’t internally freaking out or regretting the kiss from earlier, but he was so hard to read, especially from across a dark room. 

“You can have the bed again tonight,” Clay said, later when they were finally upstairs and alone again. “I doubt I’ll be getting any sleep.”

“Okay,” Justin said, not wanting to push Clay too much. “Are you… okay?”

Clay paused to think. He looked at Justin, smiled, and shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”

Justin’s face betrayed his feelings as usual, and he immediately looked down to the floor to hide his hurt. 

“But,” Clay said, stepping closer. “I don’t know. I’m freaking out a little, but... mostly because I think I feel the same about you that you feel about me.” He said it like it was a question, but Justin’s chest tightened and he smiled up at Clay. 

Clay closed the distance and pressed his lips to Justin’s. Feeling confident, Justin moved his lips and turned his head slightly to deepen the kiss briefly. Clay backed away breathing heavily, holding Justin away with a hand to his chest. “Okay. That’s… enough for tonight. Do you want me to have a panic attack?”

But Clay was still smiling so Justin shook his a head a little, raising his hands in surrender. “Okay.”

Justin laid in bed feeling happy. And of course that brought the guilt with it, and a moment of wanting heroin to take the edge off. But tonight, the happiness battled and won, and he fell asleep with a smile on his face. He’d go to a meeting tomorrow.


	2. I adore you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clay struggles with his feelings for Justin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's from Clay's point of view.

The rest of the week was just weird. He’d eventually fallen asleep on the heap of blankets that constituted the makeshift bed. He’d stared up at the ceiling for a long time, not able to come to any sort of conclusion or even have a whole thought really. Then he’d watched Justin a little, who had passed out practically right away. The moonlight filtered through the curtains and highlighted a sliver of his face. He could still hardly believe Justin Foley was in his house, in his room, in his bed. The Justin now was nothing like the one Clay had thought he’d known a couple months ago. 

Clay looked around the room. Looked at the mirror where Justin had finally mastered how to tie a tie. When Clay had told him he’d never stopped hating him. Clay tried to figure the point at which that hatred had morphed into something so completely different without him even noticing. He’d probably already been lying when he’d said it. 

Maybe when Justin finally answered Clay’s text and didn’t skip town even with all the cash he had. Clay can remember the feeling he’d gotten when Justin said he'd stayed because Clay had needed him. They’d saved each other so many times now. 

Clay sighed and rubbed his eyes, and the thoughts in his brain started to slow down and eventually he’d drifted off. When the alarm clock rang, it felt like he’d only been asleep a few seconds. He turned off the alarm and looked up to see that Justin was already out of bed. He closed his eyes again. 

Suddenly Justin was waking him up. “Clay, come on, we’re gonna be late.” He didn’t sound all that concerned, but Clay checked the clock and he’d definitely fallen asleep again. 

“Shit,” he swore and jumped up. He grabbed whatever clothes he could find nearby and put them on.

“Here, I brought you coffee,” Justin said as he offered him a mug. 

Clay downed it quickly, with his head and one arm in a t-shirt. It was too hot and he drank it so fast he could barely taste it, but he’d need the caffeine. 

“Woah,” Justin said, taking the empty mug from Clay. 

“Let’s go,” Clay said, grabbing his bag and heading down the stairs. 

“Didn’t get much sleep last night?” Justin asked once they were in the car. 

“Uh, no, not really,” Clay said. He didn’t really want to think about last night right now. It was already hard enough to focus at school without all this other stuff going on.

Justin just nodded and thankfully didn’t push it any further. 

Clay didn’t mean to ignore what happened, to not talk about it, but for the rest of the week Justin’s evenings were filled with addiction meetings and tutoring and Clay had his own homework, and there just wasn’t a good time. And Justin didn’t seem to want to bring it up either, which really shouldn’t have bothered Clay, except that for some reason it did. He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d imagined the whole thing. Or that it had been because Justin was messed up from the heroin and now he was regretting it. Clay didn’t even know if that would be such a bad thing, then everything could just be normal. 

Except that it probably couldn’t. Even if Justin changed his mind, it was too late for Clay now. He had to grip the steering wheel tighter when Justin was in the car, to stop himself from reaching out to him. He couldn’t help but watch Justin as he slept most nights. He wanted this to be easy, he wanted to be allowed to touch Justin and kiss him whenever he wanted, but things were just more complicated than that. 

On Friday night, Jess, Alex, and Zach wanted to hang out. Clay was glad for the company, and Justin could use the break from all the work he was doing.

They hung out at the café for a while, and it felt nice to laugh there with this makeshift group of friends. Clay saw Zach in a whole different light now after everything learned during the trial, and how much he’d been helping Alex. Jess and Alex were sitting close together on a bench, Zach sitting beside Alex, all of them across the table from Justin and Clay sitting on chairs. The small round table was in a quiet corner, and Clay had to try not to let his knees fall and brush against Justin’s. 

After the café, they went to Jess’s house to watch some dumb movie. Clay thought he was doing a good job of acting “normal”, whatever that was supposed to be. But then Jess asked him to help her get more snacks and drinks from the kitchen. He tried to brush off the suspicion, but when they got to the kitchen and she began with a drawn out “Soooo…” he knew he was screwed. 

“What’s going on with you? You’re acting so weird.”

“What do you mean? No I’m not,” Clay tried to act cool. Not his strong suit. 

“You’ve been, like, visibly keeping your distance from Justin. I thought you guys were cool now. Are you fighting or something?” And then with a laugh, “I guess that’s what brothers do.”

“Don’t,” Clay said instinctively and winced. “Don’t call him that.” He looked to the floor, knowing that would only bring more questions. 

“Why? I know it’s a bit weird and like, adopting someone at 17 doesn’t make them family or anything but –“ 

“It’s not that,” Clay said. He hated people assuming he was being petty about sharing his parents or something. Justin would probably appreciate them more than he ever would anyway. He wished he could be talking to anyone but Jess right now. Or… maybe she was the one person he could talk to about this. 

“We… kissed,” Clay said taking a deep breath in between, ready for a blow to the gut of some kind. 

Jess’s face morphed from initial shock, to an almost hysterical smile, and then to a sort of incredulous confusion. “Wait, what?”

“Like, more than once,” Clay said. Her disbelief was slightly offensive. 

“Wow, Clay, I didn’t know you were…” she trailed off. 

“Yeah, me neither,” Clay admitted. “I don’t know if I even know what I am now.”

“Okay,” she said nodding and leaning against the counter. “So we won’t call you brothers then.” She laughs and Clay throws his head back against the wall. “Who else knows?” she asks. 

Clay just slowly shakes his head with his lips pressed together. “No one.” She seems surprised at that. “I’m starting to feel like it didn’t even happen, but…” he sighed. “I can remember every second of it and how it felt. This just makes everything so complicated. We haven’t really talked about it since the last time. I just don’t know what to do.”

Jess gave him a pitying smile. “You’re overthinking this. Look, no one is going to care that you’re adopted br—you know. Sure it might be complicated at first, but then… everyone will get over it. You guys can figure this out. Justin… both of you deserve to be happy. We all do. You can’t let stupid little things hold you back.”

“Yeah… yeah, you’re right. Thanks Jess,” he said. 

She laughed again. “Oh my god, I can’t believe this. You have to figure this out so I can talk to someone about it before I explode.”

“Please don’t tell anyone. Please Jess,” he said. 

She grabbed some more pop and a bag of chips. “I’ll try my best,” she said with a wink and a big grin, and headed back upstairs. 

He followed shortly after, feeling a bit lighter, and like maybe things could be okay. He sat beside Justin, closer than he’d been all night. Justin looked up at him as he sat down and Clay smiled, sitting close enough for their arms to brush. Justin smiled back. They watched the rest of the movie like that, with Clay too scared to move. 

When they got back home, it was late, and Clay’s parents were already in bed. The boys got ready for bed and when Clay got back from brushing his teeth, Justin was getting himself comfortable on the floor and Clay got into his bed. The lights were off, but enough light from outside streamed through the window to see Justin. 

“Hey,” he said. 

“Hey,” Justin replied, turning to lie on his side so he could look at Clay. 

“Do you,” Clay started, but the words got stuck on the way out. He cleared his throat. He had to deal with this eventually. “Do you regret us kissing?”

Justin’s eyes widened. “No, do you?” he answered easily. 

“No.” Clay let go of a breath hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He felt a little more at ease. “I just thought, since we weren’t talking about it, that maybe you did.”

Justin smiled. “I was trying to give you space. You weren’t exactly talking about it either you know.”

“I know,” Clay said. “I guess I was just trying to figure out what it meant.” It wasn’t exactly how he wanted to word it, but he was so tired of trying to think things through. 

Justin took a moment. “You remember when I asked you to go to the dance with me?”

Clay laughed a little. “You mean when you guilted me into going because you didn’t want to go alone,” he said.

“Yeah,” Justin said smiling. “Except that,I was planning to ask you to _go with_ me. But after the adoption stuff, I kind of chickened out.”

Clay stared at the opposite wall and then looked back Justin, who was giving him those god damn puppy dog eyes that Clay was sure made everyone’s heart melt, not just his. “You were going to ask me to the dance? Like, as a date?”

“Yup,” Justin said. “I mean, I did still kind of try to.”

Clay remembered. He remembered thinking the way Justin had asked sounded a little weird. But then, Justin was always a little weird, so he’d brushed it off. 

Clay pulled the sheets off himself and walked over to Justin, and dropped to his knees. Justin’s eyes were wide and cautious, and Clay watched him swallow hard. Clay put his hands on either side of Justin’s head and Justin’s tongue darted out to lick his lips. Clay lowered his head down slowly, and kissed Justin once and paused. Then another kiss and another pause. “I’m sorry,” he said and kissed Justin again. 

“For what?” Justin asked, bringing his hand up to the back of Clay’s head. 

“I don’t know,” Clay said again, kissing faster now until there was no more pulling back, no more pauses. They just kept kissing and Justin was pulling Clay in with his roaming hands. Pulling down at Clay’s neck, his shoulders, the small of his back. Clay couldn’t help but drop down closer and grind against Justin, who let out a breathy moan. 

“Fuck,” Clay gasped. 

“Is this too much?” Justin asked, suddenly loosening his grip on Clay. 

“No. No it’s good,” Clay whispered back. 

They were both wearing just boxers and t-shirts, and Clay kissed Justin again. Softly this time, aware of his reddened lips. He lowered his hips slowly and purposefully, pressing his hardness to Justin’s. 

Justin let Clay tease him for only a moment, before he started to kiss back feverishly again and then pulled down his boxers slightly. “Please,” he said, and Clay was already saying yes before Justin even finished the word. He pulled down Clay’s boxers too, just enough to get a hand around both of them. They only lasted a little longer, sliding together like that, kissing deeply and desperately. When they finished, Justin took his shirt off and used it to clean up the mess, throwing it on the ground by the hamper. They both laid on their backs, breathing heavily. Clay watched Justin’s chest rise and fall, he placed a hand on Justin’s chest and traced the tattoo that ran along it. Justin looked over at him, raising his eyebrows with a tentative smile. Clay couldn’t help the huge smile that spread across his face, and he buried it in the blankets underneath him. Justin gave a small laugh and his arm weaved over and around Clay, pulling him a little closer. 

Clay woke up to the alarm clock uncomfortably hot. He went to move, but realized there was a body pressed against his front. When he opened his eyes, Justin was there, shirtless, and blissfully unaware of the alarm beeping. So, that hadn’t been a wild dream. Good to know. 

He stole his arm from Justin's hold and had to half crawl over him to hit the 'off' button on the clock. Then he sat back down on the floor, watching Justin slowly wake up. Justin opened his eyes to look around, and upon seeing Clay rolled over and wrapped an arm around Clay’s waist and tried to push him to lie down again. 

“Justin, we have to get up,” Clay said half-heartedly as he let Justin pull him down. 

“No, it’s Saturday,” Justin replied, voice muffled from his face being pressed into Clay’s side. 

“Well you clearly don’t know much about the household you’ve been brought into,” he said. 

Justin groaned. 

“Sleeping in is outlawed here.”

Justin groaned louder and then finally leaned up onto his forearm. “Stop being so uptight,” he said with a smile, and then leaned down to kiss Clay. They kissed soft and slow and the morning breath wasn’t great, but it definitely didn't make it unpleasant. 

“Hey, next time we share a bed, can it be the real one?” Justin asked, looking over at Clay’s empty bed. Clay laughed, and yeah, his neck definitely wasn’t loving the blanket-floor-bed thing. 

A knock on the door had Clay suddenly bolting up to his feet. “Clay, Justin, are you up? It’s almost 10am.”

Clay knew there was a lock on the door, that she couldn’t come in, but his heart was racing. “Yeah,” he replied. “We’ll be down in a couple minutes.”

He rubbed a hand over his face and then looked to Justin who was rolling his eyes dramatically. “See? Outlawed,” Clay said, and went to go shower. 

When they made their way to the kitchen, Clay’s mom offered to make them some eggs and toast for breakfast. His dad sat at the table reading the paper. 

His dad asked how their night was and how their friends were doing. The boys took turns answering the various questions and ate their breakfast quickly. 

“Sorry about the bed situation,” Mrs. Jensen said. 

Clay and Justin both looked up at her. “What?” Clay asked. 

“That we still haven’t got a real bed for Justin,” she said. “It’s just been a bit crazy with the new job. We’ll get to it soon.”

“No worries,” Justin said.

“Yeah, it’s fine mom. Not a big deal.” He didn’t want to be talking about their sleeping situation at all, he could already feel his cheeks going red. 

“Okay. Oh, and here,” she said pulling out several twenties from her wallet. “Go to the mall and get Justin some new clothes.”

“That’s really not necessary Mrs. Jensen,” Justin started. 

“Justin, we’re looking after you now. And you need a lot more than you currently have.”

“Get used to it,” Mr. Jensen said without looking up from the paper. 

“Okay. Thank you,” Justin said and Clay took the money from his mom. 

“Thanks mom, we’ll go to the mall now I guess,” Clay said, looking to Justin. Justin nodded in agreement and they grabbed their stuff and left. 

Suddenly things felt more normal with Justin. It felt easy to be around him again, knowing how they felt about each other and that it was just theirs. They made fun of each other’s music tastes in the car on the way to mall, fighting over what station to listen to. Once they were at the mall, Justin looked uncomfortable. His shoulders curved in a way that made him look smaller. 

“You okay?” Clay asked, pressing his hand lightly to Justin’s back.

“Yeah. I just hate shopping,” Justin said. “And malls. All these people.”

Clay nodded. He got that. He didn’t particularly like shopping or large groups of people either. “Well, where do you usually get clothes? We’ll go to as few stores as possible.”

“Thanks,” Justin said, giving Clay a small smile. “But, I don’t really know. Bryce would usually buy me clothes.”

Shit. Of course he never really had money for this kind of thing. Bryce probably paid for a lot of his stuff. 

“Right. Well,” Clay grabbed Justin’s arm and forced him to stop walking. Then he stood in front of Justin, crossing his arms and tapping his chin in a considering way. 

“Oh my god, please stop,” Justin laughed. 

“I know exactly where we should go,” Clay said and then grabbed Justin’s arm to get him moving again. Justin followed but maneuvered his arm out of Clay’s grasp and instead held Clay’s hand. Clay stopped and looked down, then looked around, anxiety beginning to rise. 

“Calm down,” Justin said, letting go. “I just wanted to see how it felt.” He shrugged, and gave Clay that puppy dog look he was so good at. Clay wanted to say fuck it, and kiss him and hold his hand in front of all these people, but he just couldn’t. 

He cleared his throat. “Come on,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets and leading the way again until they were outside of Hot Topic. 

“I’m not going in there,” Justin said, seeing dresses with various nerdy things on them in the front window. 

“There’s cooler stuff inside, I promise,” Clay said, already grinning with anticipation. 

“Clay, you are such a nerd,” Justin said shaking his head, but he was already walking into the store. 

Clay picked out various t-shirts of movies and shows Justin had probably never even watched while Justin made fun of things around the store. He grabbed some pants before forcing Justin into a change room. 

Justin first came out in a black star wars shirt and black skinny jeans that had a chain attached between a belt loop and the pocket. Clay couldn’t help but laugh, as Justin rolled his eyes and said, “Hey, you did this”. 

Next he came out in ridiculously tight grey skinny jeans and a white sex pistols shirt. “How can these pants be so tight and still loose?” he asked, holding out the waistband that was too big. 

“The shirt looks good though,” Clay said. He was unable to laugh at the ridiculous pants because the shirt was made to look pre-worn or vintage or something and the collar was stretched out and showed off Justin’s collarbone, with parts of his tattoo peaking out. The sleeves clung to his biceps as he held his arms against the doorframe. And the shirt was loose against the rest of Justin’s body and Clay took a quick look around. They were alone in the secluded back part of the store, so Clay crowded Justin back into the change room, and pressed him against the wall so he could kiss Justin’s collarbone and slide his hands easily up the loose shirt. He felt the cut of Justin’s hips with his thumbs and kissed his way up Justin’s neck. 

“Clay, stop,” Justin said and Clay immediately backed away wondering what was wrong. “These pants are way too tight for this,” Justin laughed. 

Clay laughed too, not believing he’d let himself go like that. 

“I’m totally getting this shirt,” Justin said with a flirty raised eyebrow. 

“Okay,” Clay nodded. “I’m gonna,” he started and pointed to the door, then left the room. Justin got changed back to his regular clothes and they bought a couple of the cooler shirts Clay had picked out. 

Then Clay took them to Old Navy. “You can get pretty much everything here,” Clay said. They picked out some good normal pants for Justin, plus some socks and new boxers, and some plain shirts and button-up shirts. 

Even though they’d only been to two stores, they were both sick of shopping and were glad to be done. 

They headed toward the exit of the mall, bumping shoulders and slightly giddy. “That was hot earlier,” Justin said, as they neared the exit. Clay looked around the small hallway and no one was around. 

“You’re… kind of hot,” Clay said, and it was so weird to admit out loud. 

“Thanks, I know,” Justin said smiling. 

“Idiot,” Clay said. Then Justin crowded him against the wall and started to kiss him. Clay was too surprised to stop him, or to be worried about someone seeing. This end of the mall didn’t seem to be very busy and there were lots of other exits and entrances to use. 

Clay bunched up Justin’s shirt in his fist. And then he heard someone say “Justin?”

Justin stepped away quickly and Clay’s heart raced, his body frozen.

“Clay!?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u so much for commenting on the first chapter!! it's really helped me keep writing plus I just loveeeee these two. <3 hope you guys enjoyed this one too.


	3. One Bad Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can Clay and Justin really hide their secret forever?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> justin pov again!

“Justin? Clay!?” Alex’s voice echoed in the empty hall. 

Alex and Jessica stood at the entrance. Jessica was looking surprised, but on the verge of laughing. Alex, on the other hand, looked like he was having a hard time comprehending what he was seeing at all. 

“Shit,” Clay breathed out. 

“We were just –“ Justin began, coming up empty for an excuse. He didn’t really care, but he would try for Clay’s sake. He was just relieved Jessica didn’t look upset. 

“Justin, it’s okay. Jessica already knows,” Clay said. Justin looked to him with confusion. When did they have time to talk about it? 

Justin suddenly remembered the night before, when Clay and Jess had gone to get snacks. When they came back, Clay was suddenly okay sitting closer to Justin than he had all week. He smiled to himself; he’d have to thank Jess for helping Clay come to his senses. 

“What the fuck?” Alex said. “You knew about… this? And didn’t tell me?”

“It wasn’t my secret to tell, Alex,” Jess replied sternly. 

“I made her promise not to tell anyone,” Clay said. Justin was annoyed that Clay even had to defend that right now. 

“Yeah. No, of course. Sorry,” Alex said to Clay, finally realizing he was being an ass. “Sorry,” he said again to Jess. She grabbed his hand in hers and squeezed, giving him a small smile. 

The silence that followed was awkward. Justin watched Clay for a signal of what to do. He’d follow Clay’s lead. 

“Can you just not tell anyone please?” Clay asked Alex.

Alex rolled his eyes. “I can at least tell Zach, right? He’s so not going to believe this,” he said with a small laugh.

“Alex,” Justin said seriously.

“Yeah, fine,” he replied, defensively. “Whatever. You guys will probably just be caught again anyway. Like, we’re at a mall. Anyone could’ve seen you.”

Justin looked at Clay, who was looking at the ground. 

“I know, I know. I’m just,” Clay looked up at Justin, “I’m not ready yet.” And Justin knew that was meant just for him and he nodded in reassurance. He could live with this for now. 

He suddenly realized how far away he’d been standing from Clay since they’d been interrupted. He walked over and wrapped his arm around Clay’s waist. Clay relaxed momentarily into Justin’s touch, then tensed again as he remembered where they were and looked around. Still, there was no one else nearby.

“This is still weird,” Alex said.

“Yeah, sorry, but kind of,” Jess agreed, laughing. “You guys look good together,” she added more sincerely. Justin couldn’t help but smile at that. 

“Shut up,” Clay said, but he was smiling, the red in his cheeks rising. 

“Well, we were just leaving,” Justin said, wanting to just get out of the mall.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna come hang out with us?” Jess asked.

Justin’s grip on Clay tightened.

“No, it’s cool,” Clay said quickly. “We’ll see you later?”

“Yeah. Monet’s tonight?” she asked brightly.

“Sure, yeah,” Clay agreed.

“I can’t,” Justin added, looking to the ground. “I have a meeting.”

Clay’s hand was on his back in an instant, rubbing small circles. “Hey. It’s good. It’s okay. I’ll pick you up and we can all hang out.”

He looked up at Clay who was smiling softly at him. He smiled back, but he couldn’t help but feel ashamed. The meetings were supposed to help, but they also reminded him of all the fuck-ups he’d made so far.

“Ok, see you guys later,” Jess said as she began to walk with Alex to the main hall.

Clay breathed out in relief. “Let’s go home.”

“Good with me,” Justin agreed.

Once they were in the car, a thought nagged at the back of his mind. “Look, I know you aren’t ready to just come out to the whole school or anything. But why don’t you want even our friends to know?”

“Really? As soon as they know, the whole school will know. It’s only a matter of time.” 

“Okay. But why are you so terrified about that?” Justin asked. That was what really ate away at him. He wouldn’t blame Clay for being ashamed of him. 

Clay stayed silence for a moment, focused on driving. An uneasy feeling began to grow in Justin’s stomach but he tried to push it down. 

“I don’t know,” Clay said finally. “It’s just none of their business. All this shit happens and these people and relationships just get ruined because people can’t just leave things alone.” Justin was surprised at the emotional response. The way Clay’s voice was cracking. “I don’t want them to ruin this,” he said more softly. 

“They won’t,” Justin said, putting his hand over one of Clay’s gripping the steering wheel. “We don’t have to tell them.” Justin could understand that. He didn’t care what anyone at that school thought of them, but not caring didn’t mean they would be safe.

Clay loosened his hand from the steeling wheel to lace his fingers through Justin’s. He could live with just having moments like these all to themselves.

When they got home, they made themselves sandwiches and ate in Clay’s room. Plates were piled on the floor beside empty coffee mugs, and Justin was reading one of Clay’s comic books. He couldn’t believe he’d missed out on these. Clay’s head was on his stomach, rising and falling with each of Justin’s breaths, and Justin’s hand lay on Clay’s chest, feeling the steady heartbeat. The comic Clay had been reading lay abandoned and ruffled on the bed as Clay had fallen asleep. 

Justin only realized it had been a couple hours when Mrs. Jensen got home from whatever she’d been doing and called them for dinner. Justin put his comic book back on the pile he was working through. 

“Clay,” he whispered, shaking the other boy lightly.

Clay woke easily, and he turned his head slightly to kiss Justin’s stomach through his shirt. Then he kissed his way up Justin’s body, giving him chills, until he kissed him once on the mouth. Justin laughed lightly, “Dinner.”

Clay sighed dramatically and got out of bed, dragging Justin with him, before his mom could start calling them again. Justin liked eating dinner with Clay’s parents. He’d obviously never had a sit down meal with his own mom, but even the odd time he actually ate with Bryce and his parents, it was nothing like this. 

Clay’s dad was funny, and his mom was kind, and they asked questions about Justin’s life like they actually cared. He’d hated when he caused them to fight, when they talked about him like a stray dog that Clay had taken in. But they made him feel at home so quickly, and it made something tighten in Justin’s stomach. The guilt started rising and told him he didn’t deserve this happiness. His leg bounced up and down as he picked at what was left of the food on his plate. 

“Hey, we better go,” Clay said, shaking Justin from his thoughts. 

He picked up Clay’s left wrist and pulled back the sleeve slightly to check the watch there. They did have to leave soon if Justin was going to make the meeting. And he needed it more than he wanted to admit right now. 

“Yeah let’s go,” Justin said. They both got up from the table, and then Justin noticed the amused looks from Clay’s parents. It was only then he realized he was still holding onto Clay’s hand, had dragged him up by it. He dropped it immediately like it burned him. “Thanks Mr. and Mrs. Jensen,” he said politely and turned to leave. 

“Matt and Lainie!” Mrs. Jensen called as he and Clay bolted up the stairs to grab their things. 

He scoured the bedroom, grabbing his wallet, keys, and cell phone. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Clay said, with a hand on his elbow.

“What?” Justin asked, unsure what Clay was evn talking about. 

“They didn’t think anything of that. They probably thought it was cute that we’re like getting along or whatever,” Clay said. 

“Yeah, I know,” Justin shrugged. He hadn’t even realized his heart was racing and he was shaking slightly. Clay pulled him into a hug. Justin rested his forehead against Clay and took a couple deep breaths to calm down. “I know. I’m just scared of messing things up,” he said into Clay’s shoulder. 

“It’s okay. You won’t,” Clay reassured him. The words felt empty though. Justin would always fuck things up; it was just a matter of time. 

“We gotta go,” Justin said, pulling away. 

“Right,” Clay said as he turned to leave. Then he turned back and quickly kissed Justin, placing a hand on Justin’s cheek. Justin leaned into the touch briefly, before they both left. 

The NA meetings were rough. It was like looking into a bunch of possible futures that he was hoping to avoid. At least it motivated him to get better, but he couldn’t understand how these people felt so comfortable sharing their stories. Justin had been to several meetings now, but had yet to actually talk. The organizer would inevitably say his name during each meeting, hoping for something from him. Each time, Justin would just dismiss it with an “I’m good” and ignore the disappointed face the guy had no right to give him. 

People would come up to him at the breaks, giving him friendly smiles and trying to offer words of advice. Speaking at a meeting will help you. You’re only hurting yourself by keeping it all inside. You can’t get better until you let go of the past. But was any of it past him? Would it ever be past him? He needed to find a way through the shit, a way to stop feeling so guilty all the time. And that train of thought was not helping. “I’m fine,” he’d reply to each person before briskly walking away to drink the burnt-tasting coffee alone. 

They all wanted to save him, to be the one that got through to him. He wanted to save himself for once. He’d talk when he was ready. 

The meeting got out a little earlier than he’d expected, but it should’ve been just a couple minutes until Clay was there to pick him up. The cool night air felt good after being stuck in that stuffy room. Some people left, some stragglers stood outside in small groups to talk and smoke cigarettes. He briefly wondered if he should take up smoking, to trade in one addiction for another. Clay would probably kill him. He smiled to himself at the thought of Clay lecturing him once again, only now Justin could shut him up by pulling Clay into his lap and kissing him until he forgot what he was mad about. 

He pulled out his phone to check the time again and to see if Clay had texted him when he heard a car door slam shut. He looked up to see a disheveled guy walking across the street toward him quickly. 

“You little piece of shit!” yelled his mom’s junkie boyfriend, Seth.

Justin looked around for where he could go, but the guy was fast and Justin stumbled a few steps before trying to run. He was quickly tackled to the ground, face sliding against the concrete sidewalk. The larger man flipped him over and immediately punched him in the face. 

“Fuck!” Justin screamed. He tried to hit back, but Seth was heavy on top of him and pinning one arm to the ground. He used his free hand to push against the guy’s chest in a feeble attempt to get him to back off. When Seth pulled his fist back again, it was covered in Justin’s blood. 

“Where’s my fucking money!?” he yelled. His eyes were bloodshot and he was clearly strung out on some heavy shit. 

Justin was about to tell him he’d get him his money, when three guys were suddenly pulling Seth off of him and pressing him to the ground. 

“Justin!” Another car door slammed, and Clay was quickly kneeling beside him, hands searching over his body. “What the fuck!?”

He saw Seth flail and hit someone else, before breaking away from the group that had saved Justin. He got in his car and drove away. 

Justin rolled sideways and spat out blood. “Meth Seth,” he said in reply. 

“Hey,” some woman came over and was talking to Clay. “It’s okay, I’ve called the police.”

“Fuck, no, we have to leave,” Justin said, reaching out to grab Clay’s shirt. His mind was racing. He was on probation, if he got in any trouble he was screwed. 

“Justin, it’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Clay said. “There are witnesses.” He sat on the ground and pulled Justin up a little, to rest his back against Clay’s chest. “You have to let the blood drain out.” He had pulled off his sweater and made Justin hold it against his nose. 

“What if they send me away again?” Justin asked, still freaking out, but he didn’t have the strength to do anything about it. 

“I won’t let them,” Clay said, wrapping an arm protectively around Justin, but wary of pressing too hard anywhere. 

Clay took out his phone and called someone. Justin realized it was Clay’s mom and he could picture her reaction. Her maternal instincts worrying her, but the lawyer part of her brain jumping in to direct Clay on how to talk to the cops if they got there before her. He hated to think that she might be wondering if he was even worth all of this shit. 

Justin waited in Clay’s arms, letting Clay soothe him, although it did nothing for the pain in his face and the headache growing, pulsing in his skull. The police didn’t take too long to arrive and Mrs. Jensen was there shortly after. The police talked to the witnesses and seemed to believe Justin wasn’t at fault. They told Clay to take him to the hospital, and that they’d meet him there to get a statement. 

It was a long night. They arrived home after spending a few hours in the waiting room at the ER, another hour being treated, and another hour talking to the police. He had a few scrapes, a possible mild concussion they had to watch out for, and a broken nose. 

Clay let Justin lay down on the bed, piling pillows under his head and asking if he needed anything. Clay had already given him aspirin and water and offered everything else he could think of, but Justin just wanted to sleep. 

“Come here,” he said to Clay. 

Clay sat on the bed, hand lightly rubbing Justin’s leg. 

“I’m so sorry,” Justin said, tears already burning behind his eyes. 

“What? Justin you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not your fault,” Clay said intensely. 

“It is,” he replied quietly. “Remember all that cash I said my mom gave me?” Justin couldn’t look at Clay. He kept staring at the wall ahead.

“Yeah,” Clay said with a sigh. 

“Well, I lied. I stole it from Seth again.”

The silence forced Justin to turn and look at Clay, to try and figure out what he was thinking. 

Clay just stared at him and breathed out through flared nostrils. “Yeah, no shit, Justin.”

“What?” Justin asked. 

“Did you really think I bought that?”

“I don’t know,” Justin mumbled, feeling stupid now. 

“Why’d you do it? He already wanted to kill you the last time,” Clay said. There was more concern than judgment in his voice. 

“I wasn’t planning on coming back,” Justin said quietly, looking meaningfully at Clay. He hoped Clay understood that he really had stayed for him. And he also hoped that was okay. He didn’t want to put this all on Clay. 

“I told my mom to get out of town, and left her some of the money. He looked more fucked up than I’ve ever seen him. I think she left him.” That thought at least brought some peace to Justin. 

Clay scooted back on the bed, then climbed up behind Justin, wrapping an arm under his, and squeezing Justin’s chest a little too tight before easing up. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Clay said quietly into Justin’s neck. His breath was hot and it gave Justin goosebumps, but the words made him feel lighter. He hadn’t fucked anything up. Mrs. Jensen hadn’t blamed him, the police didn’t blame him, and Clay, the person who knew the whole story, didn’t blame him either. Clay’s arm loosened even more around Justin as he drifted off to sleep. 

It was the first time they were falling asleep on Clay’s bed together. Justin looked at the makeshift floor-bed and thought about folding up the blankets and sheets that were on the ground, putting them away, not needing them anymore because _this_ was all they needed. 

*** 

It was late, but Lainie’s adrenaline was still keeping her wide-awake. Those boys would be the death of her with all this drama. She was on her way to the kitchen to make tea when she noticed Clay’s door wasn’t shut all the way. Unusual nowadays for him to forget to lock his door, but understandable under the circumstances. She reached for the handle to pull it shut, but hesitated, and opened it a little more instead. 

When Clay was young, she loved to watch him sleep. They look so peaceful in their sleep, when they can’t yell at you and disobey you and tell you they hate you. She looked into the room and first saw the empty nest of blankets on the floor. Then she noticed the bed where both the boys were laying. She shut the door quickly but quietly, and paused. Surely, it was nothing. It was sweet that Clay was so protective of Justin. And it was understandable if Justin needed to be comforted after the events of the night. Surely that was all it was…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading everyone! i will try and have the next chapter up soon!


	4. Vires et Honestas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you will find out in this chapter, but just by the way, “vires & honestas” is what justin’s chest tattoo says!

When Clay woke up, Justin was still fast asleep. They hadn’t set an alarm but it was still early, so he let Justin sleep. Blue, brown, and red splotched his face. Bruises marked his under eyes, and the area around his nose was swelling a little. Before quietly leaving the room, he made sure Justin was still breathing and hadn’t vomited or anything. He kept going over the list of concussion symptoms in his head. The doctor had given him a little sheet that was folded up in his pants, but he could remember them. 

He went down the stairs slowly, trying to adjust to the bright sunlight shining through the windows. His dad was sitting at the table, drinking coffee and reading the paper. 

“Clay, how’s Justin?” he asked with concern. 

“He seems okay. Still alive,” he offered with a weak smile. His dad didn’t look impressed. “I’ll watch him for concussion symptoms and the doctor thinks he’ll be fine, but his face looks pretty bad.”

“And you were both just starting to look normal again,” his dad joked. 

Clay huffed and went to get himself coffee. “Where’s mom?”

“At the police station. Apparently they had some new information on this Seth guy. They wouldn’t give her enough details, so she went down there.”

“Oh okay,” Clay said. He tried to hide the worry in his voice, tried to calm the panic rising. 

His dad put down the newspaper. “They’ll get him Clay. He’s not a criminal mastermind by any means and he’s already had warrants out for his arrest.”

Clay nodded and tried to give his dad a small smile. “I know.” He wanted to believe it, but the system had failed him before. It had failed Justin before. It was the same system that gave Justin more time in juvie and a longer probation than Bryce. Clay clenched his jaw just thinking about it. If they weren’t going to do something about this guy… he would have to. He wouldn’t let Justin get hurt again. 

Clay sat with his dad at the table as he ate his breakfast. It was a comfortable silence but Clay kept having flashes from the night before. He’d been excited to pick Justin up, to spend another night relaxing with their friends. He remembered watching his speed, not letting his excitement get him a speeding ticket. He wished now that he’d driven there faster. 

He’d been frozen when he first arrived, confused at what he was looking at. So many people were gathered around, but Clay had recognized Justin on the ground and barely moving. His pulse had spiked immediately with adrenaline as he ran to Justin. He’d been terrified, scared of it being so much worse. It could have been so much worse. 

Clay pushed his bowl of cereal away feeling sick; he’d barely eaten any of it. 

“Not as hungry as I thought,” Clay said when his dad looked at him with an eyebrow raised in concern. “I’m gonna go check on Justin.” He got up from the table and kept himself from running up the stairs like he wanted to, pacing himself for his dad’s benefit. 

When he got back into his room, he sighed with relief as Justin’s chest lifted and fell with his loud breaths. He stirred as Clay shut the door and walked over to the bed. 

“Ow,” Justin said as he started to open his eyes. 

“Here,” Clay said. He took some more aspirin out of the nearby bottle and handed it to Justin, who tossed them in his mouth quickly. Clay then passed him the glass of water and Justin drank the whole thing. 

“How do you feel?” Clay asked. It was a stupid question and he knew it, but he didn’t know what else to say. 

“Like shit,” Justin replied. 

“Sorry, dumb question,” Clay said. “Can I do anything to help? I should get you more ice.”

“No. Just come lay down,” Justin said, sleepily. 

Clay still felt anxious, far too much nervous energy to lay still. He didn’t want to worry Justin by talking about the Seth stuff, and he didn’t want to make him feel guilty by telling him how fucking scared of losing Justin he'd been the night before. 

“Um, in a bit, okay?” Clay said, looking around the room a little. “I should do some laundry.” 

Justin’s tired eyes were barely open, but he pouted at Clay. 

Clay started throwing random clothes lying around into the hamper. He wasn’t even sure how much of it was his or Justin’s at this point. Then he bundled up the sheets and blankets from the floor in his arms. 

“Hey,” Justin said softly, watching Clay. “Do you think we could put those away after?”

Justin looked at him like he was scared of what Clay’s reaction would be. He was like a puppy that always thought it was going to be kicked. It broke Clay’s heart a little, but was also just endearing enough that it briefly broke through his wall of anxiety. 

A half-smile pulled at his mouth and he looked at the sheets in his arms and back to Justin. “Consider them gone,” he shrugged. His heart clenched a little at the thought of sharing a bed with Justin every night, that Justin would even want that. 

“Cool,” Justin said, eyes closed now but a small smile on his face. 

Clay couldn’t help but drop the pile of laundry and walk over to the bed to give Justin the lightest kiss he could manage. Justin hummed in content as he seemed to drift back to sleep. Clay picked up the pile of sheets from the ground again and went to wash them. 

“You are cute together you know,” a voice suddenly said from behind him. 

Clay spun around, but no one was there. He turned back and stared at the water filling in the washing machine, squeezing his eyes shut tight. He opened them slowly and looked around. She wasn’t there. And Clay wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed. 

Suddenly he was a lot more tired, his anxiety melting away to exhaustion. He went back to his room, and his bed, and climbed over Justin to tuck himself beside the other boy. 

Clay woke to a light knocking on the door and he felt disoriented. 

“Clay? Justin? I need to talk to you,” his mom was saying. 

Panic rose in Clay and he quickly got up, already thinking of excuses when he realized she would have no idea about them sharing a bed. He remembered she was at the police station all morning and that was probably what she wanted to talk about. 

“Clay?” his mom said again, another light tapping. 

He opened the door a crack. “Hey, sorry, yeah we’ll be down in a minute.”

“Oh, were you still sleeping?” she asked. 

“Justin was. I just… I was awake, I just thought I’d have a nap,” Clay said. 

“Okay.” She paused and turned to leave. “Um, the sheets you washed are in the dryer.”

Clay felt the colour drain from his face. “Thanks. Yeah, the floor was pretty uncomfortable without those,” he said quickly. 

She smiled and nodded at him and went downstairs. 

Clay shut the door and leaned his back against it. His paranoia must be blowing this out of proportion. There was no way she would assume anything from just that. 

Justin was up and slowly putting pants on and a fresh shirt. Clay watched, wanting to reach out and touch him, but he held back. 

“Staring is rude,” Justin said with a small smile. 

Clay rolled his eyes. “Well with the state of your face, it’s hard not to.”

“Shit, how bad is it?” Justin asked going over the mirror. “Yikes.”

“Yikes,” Clay said in agreement. 

“Is this a deal breaker?” Justin asked jokingly, turning to Clay. 

“Who said I liked you for your looks?” Clay replied. 

He pushed himself off the door and went to Justin, pulling him into a hug, nuzzling his face into Justin’s neck. “I’m glad you’re not dead,” he said quietly. 

“Hey,” Justin said, pulling away slightly and making Clay look into his eyes. “Thanks.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to Clay’s, softly at first, and then a little more eager, bringing his hand up to Clay’s neck. “Ow.” Justin suddenly winced and leaned back.

Clay huffed out a breath. “Idiot,” he said without a trace of malice, and the smallest of smiles. 

“I guess I’ll just have to be gentle,” Justin said with a raise of his eyebrows. 

Clay laughed and then remembered why they were getting ready in the first place. 

“We should go talk to my mom. She’s been at the police station. I think there’s some news about Seth or something.” He watched Justin carefully as he told him. 

Justin grew solemn quickly, and he nodded. “Okay.”

Clay led the way downstairs where his parents were sitting at the dining table.

“Oh good, I was just telling your dad what happened,” his mom began. Only, she looked happy, which was not what Clay expected.

“What – what happened?” he asked, trying not to get his hopes up. He and Justin both sat down, giving each other a quick, confused glance.

“They found Seth. He’s been arrested.”

Clay felt a weight lift off his shoulders. He took a deep breath, but when he looked to Justin, the other boy didn’t seem happy.

“He’s been arrested before,” Justin explained. “And I don’t want to go back to court. I don’t think I can go through that again.” 

Clay wanted so badly to reach out and comfort Justin. He always looked so small when he was upset, the way his spine curved and his shoulders curled in around him.

“No, honey, you won’t have to,” Clay’s mom explained. “He’s pleading guilty.”

“Why would he do that?” Clay asked quickly, glancing at Justin who was now looking at Clay’s mom in surprise. 

“He’ll still go to prison for a little while. But in return for an easier sentence on the assault and possession charges, he agreed to give up some higher ups in his drug circle.” She stopped and looked at Justin who didn’t look any happier after hearing this. “This is a win,” she added softly, with a smile.

Justin nodded, tears brimming in his eyes, threatening to spill over. He pressed his face into his shoulder to stop them, then cleared his throat. “Thank you, Mrs. Jensen. And I’m sorry for causing trouble.”

“It’s not your fault, Justin,” Clay’s dad spoke up quickly.

“Not at all. And please, will you call me Lainie already?” Clay’s mom said with a laugh. 

Justin looked to Clay, like he wanted Clay to tell him it was okay. Clay almost laughed, but instead put a hand out as if to say ‘go ahead’. 

“Thanks Lainie,” Justin said, sounding uncomfortable. 

“Now, how about we go get you boys a new bed?” she asked cheerily.

“What?” Clay asked reflexively. Too quickly, too defensively, he realized.

Justin was looking worried as well and Clay noticed him gulp.

Clay’s mom looked a little taken aback by their responses and spoke carefully. “I just thought you’d want a real bed instead of one of you sleeping on the floor. Sorry it’s been so busy, we should have gotten one sooner.”

“Right, yeah,” Clay said, forcing a laugh. “Sorry, must still be a little tired. We’ll go get our stuff.”

He and Justin got up from the table and went back upstairs.

“Do you think they know?” Justin asked once they were safely in the bedroom. 

“I don’t think so,” Clay said, feeling unsure but not wanting to spread his paranoia to Justin as well. 

“How mad do you think they’d be?” Justin asked worriedly. 

Clay was finally able to wrap his arms tightly around Justin. “They won’t be mad. I don’t know what they would say or do, but it wouldn’t be as bad as whatever you’re imagining.” Justin balled up Clay’s shirt in his fist. “They’re all about talking. Probably just sit us down and force us to have the most awkward conversation of our life,” Clay laughed. 

He could feel Justin nod slightly. “Okay.”

They separated so they could grab their things. Justin looked around the room. “How the hell is another bed fitting in here?”

“No clue,” Clay admitted. “But hey, it’ll just be for storage right?” He gave a crooked smile at Justin, whose face was finally splitting into a grin. 

“Yeah. Sounds good to me.”

Clay’s mom took them to Ikea for an agonizing two hours. She insisted Justin try each bed with their various mattresses to ensure he would be happy. Justin just kept saying he liked them all and that she could pick whatever one she wanted. Clay pinched the bridge of his nose; he knew that wasn’t going to work. Finally Justin got the idea, and insisted he really liked the plain white one that had drawers along the bottom. It was small and would fit in the bedroom fine, and Justin made a show of lying down with a happy sigh and saying how great it felt. 

Getting home and trying to build it was a whole other issue. It involved a lot of Clay and his dad trying to build it, while Justin tried to direct them from the instructions. Clay then demoted Justin, leaving him to lay on Clay’s bed and read comics, while telling them it didn’t “look right” whenever he looked up.

When they finally finished, Clay only had a moment to admire his work before his mom was calling them all down for dinner. Clay was exhausted and starving, so he shoveled his food down, but afterward it was nice to just sit and feel like a real family having a homemade meal.

His phone buzzed and when he checked it, it was a message from Jess to their group chat. 

“Want to go hang out with Jess and them tonight?” Clay asked Justin, showing him the text.

“Yeah, sounds good,” Justin said. “Zach is going to be there right?” He was trying to sound nonchalant while also putting an emphasis on Zach’s name, and Clay had to refrain from rolling his eyes at how obviously unnatural it sounded. 

“Yeah,” Clay said. “Zach is usually there.”

“Right. And there’s certain things we can’t do if Zach is there,” Justin continued. 

Clay had to bite back an automatic reaction that would have just made things worse. Why would Justin do this right now? It wasn’t worth speaking in code in front of Clay’s parents. 

“What do you mean?” his mom asked.

“Uh, Zach is just picky about movies and video games and stuff,” Clay said with an innocent smile. He knew Justin meant that Zach didn’t know they were together, but he didn’t know why that should matter. They’d been fine hanging out with their friends so far.

“Yeah, and there’s just a movie I’d really like to watch but we can’t,” Justin said, looking annoyed. 

“Well maybe I don’t want to watch that movie with Zach anyway,” Clay said, glaring at Justin. How could he stop this without making a scene? Justin was clearly upset but this really wasn’t the best place to talk it out. “Maybe we can talk about this later, I’m sure my parents don’t care about the movie.” He looked up and smiled at his parents who looked a little perplexed. 

“Yeah, sure,” Justin finally conceded. He stabbed at the food on his plate, reminding Clay of a petulant child. 

“Thanks mom, dinner was really good,” Clay said as his mom started clearing away the dishes. “I think we’re gonna head to Jess’s place.”

Justin grumpily followed Clay to the car in silence.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Clay asked as soon as they were both in. “I’m already worried about my mom being suspicious and now you have to act all weird in front of them like that?”

Justin’s face changed from grumpy to guilty quickly. “Shit, I know. Sorry,” he said. “I was just excited that Jess and Alex knew. Like we can actually be ourselves now when we’re with them. Except you don’t want to tell Zach, and he’s always going to be there too.”

“You know why I don’t want to tell him,” Clay said tiredly. “We talked about this.”

“I know. And I get that you don’t want the whole school to know. But it’s just Zach. And if he knows, then we can just be normal when we’re with our friends. No secrets. No bullshit,” Justin said, taking a breath. “Fuck Clay, the only place we can be us is that bedroom and this shitty Prius.”

Clay leaned his head back on the headrest of the seat. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry.” He turned his head to look at Justin. “I’m a dumbass,” he said with an apologetic smile. 

“Well you are dumb and also an ass,” he said, nodding like Clay had just made a very good point. “So… we’re going to tell him?” he said a little more seriously.

Clay took Justin’s hand in his own, bringing it up to his face and kissing it. “Yeah.”

“Tonight?” Justin clarified. 

“Yes,” Clay said. Justin leaned over and kissed him. And then he quickly glanced back, momentarily forgetting they were still outside of the house. Clay looked as well, but it seemed they were fine. “Let’s go,” he said, starting the car and heading to Jessica’s. 

When they got there, Jess let them in and directed to them kitchen where Alex and Zach were preparing snacks. 

“Hey what’s up guys?” Clay said.

“Oh hey guys! So good to see you. Here. Together.” Zach said, awkwardly spacing out his words with a dumb grin on his face. 

Clay’s eyes narrowed immediately and he looked at Alex, who was staring down at a bowl of chips and pointedly not looking at him. 

“Do you know?” Clay asked Zach. 

“What? I’m just happy to see you guys,” he said.

“Alex…” Clay said.

Zach looked between them, apparently trying to come up with something to say before Alex suddenly elbowed him in the ribs. “I told you not to act weird. You are terrible at this.” Then he finally looked at Clay and Justin. “Sorry.”

Clay turned to Justin. “See, this is what happens as soon as someone finds out,” Clay said incredulously. 

“To be fair, we did just decide we were going to tell him,” Justin shrugged. 

“Really?” Zach asked, eyebrows climbing. 

“Yeah,” Clay admitted with a dramatic long-suffering sigh. Then he reached for Justin’s hand. “It’s better this way.”

“Nice,” Zach smiled sweetly at them. 

This time it was Justin’s turn to feel embarrassed and roll his eyes while trying to hide a smile.

Justin had been right though, it was nice to spend one night without having to lie to anyone. And it was even nicer to be able to cuddle up together on the couch during the _actual_ movie they ended up watching. 

After the movie, Clay went outside to get some air while the rest of the group were deciding what to watch next. The door opened behind him and he expected it to be Justin or maybe Jess, but it was Zach that came to stand beside him. 

“Hey,” Clay said, a little confused. He and Zach were fine, but they weren’t the closest people in the group. 

“You two are good for each other,” Zach said right off the bat. 

“Thanks.” Clay was still unsure what Zach came outside for. 

“Don’t do to him what I did to Hannah.” And there it was. 

“This is not the same,” Clay said defensively. “You didn’t tell anyone at all.”

“And it sounds like you wouldn’t have either. But Hannah and I didn’t go around kissing in busy malls.”

The words hurt. He’d been mad at Zach for a lot of reasons, but making Hannah feel like a shameful secret was pretty high up there. He hated that he might be doing the same thing to Justin, even if it was for different reasons. 

“I don’t want to hurt him,” Clay said softly. He screwed his eyes shut. “I’m trying to do the right thing, but it’s complicated.”

“I get it. A lot of things seem more important,” Zach said. “Until you lose all of it and wonder why you would have hidden it in the first place.”

Clay couldn’t help the image of Justin that popped into his head. Bloody and broken. _What if it had been worse that night?_ What if Justin was gone and all Clay could remember was how he didn’t want anyone to know about them?

He shook his head, his eyes burned trying to keep the tears at bay. “It’s not the same,” he said again. 

Zach took a second. “Okay.” Then he went back inside, leaving Clay feeling like shit. 

“You know it sort of is the same.” It was her voice again, and Clay looked around but she still wasn’t there. 

“It’s not!” he shouted at the night sky in frustration. 

“Clay what are you yelling at?” Justin asked, suddenly standing in the doorway. 

“No one,” he said quickly. “Nothing.” He offered an awkward smile and hooked his arm around Justin’s waist as they went back inside. 

When they finally left Jess’s house, Clay was feeling anxious from his little talk with Zach. He kept zoning out while Justin was apparently talking to him, and he eventually pulled over on a dark road. 

“I’m not ashamed of you,” Clay said as soon as the car stopped. 

Justin looked surprised. “I... I know,” he said hesitantly. 

Clay sighed. “I just needed to tell you that. And things are so complicated. And –“ 

“Clay, I know,” Justin said more intensely. 

Then Justin undid his seat belt so he could lean over and kiss Clay. Clay was surprised at first, but then he let each kiss melt some of his worries away. 

“Move the chair back,” Justin said, starting to undo Clay’s pants. 

Clay slid the seat back, and Justin quickly reached across him to grab the lever that made Clay fall backward. 

“Woah!” he yelled. Then he and Justin were both laughing until Justin climbed on top of him and they fumbled to get comfortable and Justin started kissing him again. 

Clay let Justin do most of the work, but he couldn’t help thrusting up into Justin’s fist around both of them, gasping into Justin's mouth, biting his lips. Clay had no idea how long it lasted but the windows were almost completely fogged up when they were finished. He reached into the backseat to grab his shirt that had come off at some point, and cleaned them up. He slipped his sweater on, the zipper feeling too cold against his bare chest. 

“You’re insane,” Clay said, looking over at Justin. 

Justin just winked at him with his widest, most charming smile. 

When they were home, they both quickly showered and got ready for bed. 

“You know, that bed was pretty comfy. I could just sleep over there,” Justin said, standing in the middle of his room in his boxers. Clay was already in bed and tried not to laugh at Justin's bluff. 

“Sure, go right ahead. I’m tired of waking up sweaty anyway,” he said. 

“Hey it’s not my fault I’m hot,” Justin said, acting hurt. 

“Shut up,” Clay said, flipping open the sheets. “Come on.”

“Well only because you insist,” Justin said dramatically. “You know one of these days you might have to learn how to fall asleep without me.”

“You know,” Clay said thoughtfully. “I don’t think I will.”

Justin smiled and stared at the ceiling, one arm folded under his head. Clay curled up around his side. He wasn’t tired enough to sleep, the shower waking him up completely. 

He mindlessly started tracing over the tattoo that ran along Justin’s chest, bordering his collarbone. “What does this even say?” Clay asked, surprised he hadn’t wondered about it sooner. 

Justin’s breath stopped a moment, then he breathed out a small sigh. “Vires et honestas,” he said, sounding somewhat reluctant. 

“Is that… latin?” Clay asked, since Justin didn’t offer the meaning. 

“Yeah,” Justin said quietly. 

Clay waited, but Justin didn’t give him anymore. He sat up a little more so he could see Justin’s face, which was looking guiltily away. 

“Sorry, I’m not fluent in latin,” Clay said flatly. “Come on, what does it mean?” He leaned down to kiss Justin’s collarbone, his shoulder, his bicep, and down his arm to his hand where he intertwined it with his own. 

Justin finally looked at Clay, eyes looking watery. “Strength and honour,” he said with a small frown. He went back to looking at the ceiling. 

Clay knew Justin didn’t think very highly of himself these days, and probably thought he didn’t live up to the motto he’d brazenly placed on his chest. He wished he could make Justin see that just because he’d made mistakes, it didn’t mean he was a bad person. He’d been abused physically and emotionally by both Seth and Bryce, and had still survived and bettered himself. 

“Why’d you get it?” Clay asked. He tried to picture Justin sitting in a chair just like he had. Clay had barely managed the small semi-colon, let alone something so big that probably took several hours. 

“It’s stupid,” Justin replied. 

“I doubt it.” Clay offered a small smile, trying to encourage Justin. He really didn’t know that much about Justin’s past and it bothered him. 

“I never knew my dad,” Justin started. Clay’s eyes momentarily widened in surprise. He wasn’t expecting it to have anything to do with Justin’s absent father. “He left my mom before she even had me. But my mom was such a mess, so I guess I just liked to imagine he was some great guy, and that maybe he just never knew about me.”

Justin paused to take a breath and Clay squeezed his hand. _It’s okay. I’m here._

“She never told me anything about him,” he continued. “And I guess I stopped wanting to know the truth, because I knew it wouldn’t be as good as what I was making up. Then one day, I found this old box in our basement when I was looking for something. It had all this junk, random papers and stuff. And then I saw these military dog tags, no name on them, but one said ‘vires’ and one said ‘honestas’. I started wearing them around, and when my mom saw them she freaked out. They were his. Here’s the dumbest part,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I was watching Gladiator a little while after that, just by random chance. And the soldiers in it, they say “strength and honour” before going to battle. And I guess I took it as a sign or something.” He paused. “Mom was pissed,” he added bitterly. Clay couldn’t be sure if Justin was angrier at his mom or himself. 

“That’s literally the farthest thing from being stupid,” Clay said a little speechless. He couldn’t help but feel protective of Justin, wishing he could have shielded him from so much pain. He had to go through so much bullshit as a kid, it was really no wonder he got so fucked up. 

“Yeah well,” Justin laughed. “It sounds cool so thankfully no one ever asks.”

“I like it,” Clay said thoughtfully. 

“Thanks,” Justin said, his discomfort apparent in his tone. 

Clay thought about what Zach had said to him, he imagined what Hannah would say. He could still hear her so clearly in his head. Justin deserved love, and didn’t deserve to feel shameful or like something that needed to be hidden away and kept a secret. 

“I want everyone to know we’re together,” Clay said quickly so he couldn’t change his mind. 

“What?” Justin asked, eyes wider now, confusion showing on his face.

“Fuck it. We can make out in the middle of the cafeteria if you want to. Whatever you want,” Clay said, realizing how much he meant it. He just wanted to see Justin happy. 

“Clay, you don’t have to do this,” Justin said, hesitant. Clay couldn’t blame him for not wanting to get his hopes up, not wanting to get hurt. 

“I want to. I promise, I really want to.” Clay tried to convey how serious he was, and he could tell that he had succeeded when Justin’s eyes searched his face, and a sweet, small smile pulled at Justin’s lips before he ducked his head away. 

“Yeah, okay,” Justin said, looking back up at Clay. He turned to kiss Clay lazily until they both fell asleep with limbs tangled together. 

 

Monday came a little too quickly for Clay. He forced down his breakfast, trying to work through the nerves that were making him jittery. Justin kept asking him if he was sure. And he was, but that wouldn’t make him less nervous. They would have no idea what to expect. 

The déjà vu hit Clay immediately as they stood on the sidewalk in front of the school, and as everyone nearby stared at them and whispered to each other. Last time, he’d hoped they were staring because Justin was back, but had known it was because they all knew about the tapes. This time, he was 100% confident he knew why they were staring. He squeezed Justin’s hand in his. 

“Strength and honour,” he said. Justin squeezed back and they made their way into the school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this update took quite a bit more time! stay tuned for even more :) thanks for reading <3


	5. Whatever This Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justin and Clay deal with the repercussions of coming out at school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a runaway train lol  
> fanmix i usually write to (and keep adding to) https://8tracks.com/allofspace/i-need-you

Clay felt sick with both nerves and excitement. Most of the day passed without incident, but it made him wonder when the other shoe would drop. A school known for it’s bullying wouldn’t just let this go, right? Regardless of Clay’s worries, the day was going better than he had imagined it would. 

Most people reacted with either surprise that he was interested in Justin (like Cyrus and Sherri), or surprise that Justin was interested in him (like every girl who probably once had a crush on Justin). They’d even made a game out of it, keeping a mental tally of who was apparently the better catch. 

And then there was Tony… who Clay definitely should have told before showing up at school. 

Tony smacked his lunch tray down on the table in front of Clay and Justin in the cafeteria. He stood there, looming over them, looking between them angrily. Clay had the decency to give him an apologetic smile, while Justin looked a little scared.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Clay finally said, breaking the silence. 

Tony seemed to mull the apology over for a second, before looking to Justin. “If you hurt him, I will kill you.” 

Justin nodded. “Got it.”

Clay rolled his eyes with a small laugh and Tony finally sat down. 

“It would have been nice to hear it from you though. I almost didn’t believe it,” he shook his head with a laugh. “Of all the guys, you pick this one?” Tony asked jokingly. 

“One more for me,” Clay proclaimed with a smile. 

“That’s not fair. Of course all your friends are going to side with you,” Justin said.

“Come on, it’s like thirty-five to three,” Clay said laughing. 

“Yeah, that is true,” Justin grinned smugly. Clay shook his head with a laugh. He wanted to kiss the stupid smile right off Justin’s face. They watched each other for a moment, and Clay was sure Justin was thinking something along the same lines. 

“What are you two idiots talking about?” Tony asked, confused. 

“Nothing,” Clay said, feeling a little embarrassed that he’d zoned out like that, as if he’d _lost himself in Justin’s blue eyes_ , he thought to himself mockingly. 

“You guys are disgusting. It’s adorable,” Tony said with just a hint of sincerity. 

Clay couldn’t believe how many people he’d never talked to before came up to him during the day to ask if the rumour was true. It felt invasive and uncomfortable, but he got used to brushing them off with a quick ‘yes’ or ‘none of your business’ depending on his mood, instead of stammering awkwardly for several minutes like he did at first.

Clay knew he’d probably see Monty in the halls at some point. It was near the end of the day and Clay was going to look for Justin at his locker. He glared at Monty as they walked toward each other in the hall, fists clenching in case he had to defend himself. He was with some other jock and they mostly ignored Clay, laughing with each other instead. Once they were passed him, Monty fake-coughed “faggot”. Clay stopped in his tracks and spun around but Monty and the other guy were already rounding the corner. 

Clay didn’t want to go looking for trouble, as long as Monty didn’t escalate to anything violent. He walked faster to go find Justin at his locker, relieved to find him there, piling books and binders into his backpack. 

“Hey,” Clay said, leaning his side against another nearby locker. 

“Hi,” Justin smiled. He zipped up his backpack and shut the locker. 

Clay looked around. The hall was mostly empty with a few other students at their lockers. Feeling a little bold, he reached out and pulled on Justin’s shirt. Justin look surprised but happily came toward Clay and kissed him against the locker. They only snapped out of it with a faint sound of giggles passing in the hall.

Later, Clay was doing homework at his desk and Justin was lying on the new Ikea bed with papers sprawled all around him. 

“Did Monty say or do anything to you today?” Clay asked suddenly. He couldn’t shake the thought from his mind. 

“No,” Justin shrugged. “You?”

“Not really,” Clay replied. Though he could already tell by Justin’s face he’d said too much.

“What did he do?” Justin asked seriously. 

“Nothing. Seriously, it’s fine. I’m just worried he will…” 

“He wouldn’t…” Justin started but trailed off. “He’s not that stupid, is he?”

Clay gave a small laugh. “Yeah, I think he is.”

Justin seemed to consider this. “We’ve all got each other’s backs. We can take him,” he said with a reassuring smile. “Now come help me with this essay.” He flopped back onto the bed dramatically. 

Clay smiled and went to help Justin, which of course disintegrated into making out and a few other activities, before they got back to their homework. 

On Tuesday, Justin went to another NA meeting after school and Clay promised he’d be there to pick him up before the meeting was even over. He met up with Tony at Monet’s in the meantime. Tony had a lot of questions about how much Clay’s parents knew, and how Justin’s recovery was going, and Clay told him about all his paranoia, and how Alex and Jess caught them in the mall. Then Tony asked a question Clay had been secretly dreading. 

“So… are you gay then or what?” Tony asked, lowering his voice a little. 

“I don’t know. Why do I have to pick something to call it?” Clay asked. 

Tony shrugged. “You don’t I guess. But as humans, we like to label things.”

“Well, I don’t want a label,” Clay said petulantly. 

“Okay. That’s cool. You can be… Justin-sexual,” Tony laughed.

Clay buried his head on the table in embarrassment for both himself and Tony. “That was so bad. Please stop,” he said, voice muffled. 

“We can go on double dates,” Tony suggested.

“I think Justin’s still scared of you,” Clay laughed, bringing his head up from the table. 

“He should be. I was serious about him hurting you.”

Clay shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ll be the one to hurt him. Or fuck this up somehow.”

Tony placed a hand on Clay’s arm. “You deserve to be happy, okay?”

Clay nodded, even if he didn’t fully believe it. “Thanks.”

True to his word, Clay was waiting outside the community center when Justin got out of his NA meeting. 

“You know I could like, walk to the house from here. Or maybe take your old bike sometimes,” Justin said, getting in the car. 

Clay was already shaking his head before Justin finished talking. “Not a chance.”

Justin nodded, still not looking at Clay. “Okay.”

“I’m not doing this out of some obligation. You know that right? I want to be here. I want to know that you’re safe.”

Justin looked up at him with those puppy dog eyes he wore so well. “Okay,” he said with a small voice. “Thanks.”

He noticed Justin sometimes got like this after his meetings. Like he was so drained of emotion, so exhausted. He wanted to ask Justin about it, about what he said or did during meetings, but he figured it would be inappropriate. 

It was times like these that Clay wanted to tell Justin how much he loved him, how much he cared about his well being and wanted to make him understand how much happiness he deserved. But he couldn’t form the words in his mouth. So instead he squeezed Justin’s hand in his own and they drove home in silence. 

The next day was much the same, although the buzz about them was already dying down. Apparently they weren’t all that interesting of a topic. After lunch, Clay opened his locker and small piece of paper fluttered to the ground. When he picked it up and read it, his heart started to thud in his chest. The noise of the halls was drowned out by the blood rushing in his ears. He slammed the locker shut and looked around wildly, but it was no use, he had no idea when the note would have been put there. Would it have been Monty? This sort of emotional torment seemed a little out of his scope. But who else could it have been? 

He stared at the note, feeling like someone had reached into his brain, to the back of his subconscious and picked through his fears. He almost felt confused when he had to fight back the tears that suddenly burned his eyes. He knew it was just a mind game. A stupid attempt at fucking with him, and Clay hated that it was working. He hated that he’d questioned his own feelings so many times already. Hated that he’d even wondered what his current feelings for Justin said about his past. He looked at it again. 

_Did you even love her?_

He pushed the thoughts down. He wouldn’t let Monty, or whoever it was, get to him like this. He crumpled the paper and shoved it in his pocket, putting it out of his mind for the rest of the day. 

Justin had to stay late at school, one of the new counselor’s extra assignments that would possibly help him to graduate on time. Clay hung out with Jess, Alex, and Zach at the mall. He stayed fairly quiet, and the others definitely noticed but thankfully didn’t pry. He didn’t want to tell anyone about the note. He wasn’t going to let it bother him, which meant he didn’t need to talk about it. 

The next day, Clay found out the note wouldn’t be the end of it, just the beginning. 

He got a text message from an unknown number that contained a blurry picture of Justin holding his backpack in one hand, and holding something else in the other. It looked like he was either taking whatever it was out or putting it into his bag. He was in the school, in an empty hall. Clay looked closer at the picture, and his heart dropped. It wasn’t clear, and he was trying not to jump to conclusions, but the tiny ball of tin foil sure brought back memories of flushing heroin down his toilet. Clay debated what to do. If Justin was using again, or thinking about it, confronting him at school probably wasn’t the best idea. He also couldn’t just assume that he was totally wrong about the picture, it was too dangerous. 

He waited until they were home, after having dinner with Clay’s dad, when they said they were going to go do homework. Clay had been nervous all afternoon thinking about what would happen. Worried he wouldn’t be able to believe Justin even if he said what Clay wanted to hear. 

Once they were safe in the room, Clay took a deep breath. “I need to show you something,” he said as he pulled out his phone. He opened the picture and showed it to Justin. 

Justin stared at the picture, not at all surprised, then he looked away guiltily. “Fuck. I’m sorry, I should have told you,” Justin said. 

“Told me what, Justin?” Clay asked, urgency rising. He didn’t want to accuse Justin, but he was finding it harder to avoid the obvious conclusion to make. 

“Clay, I didn’t do it,” Justin said intensely, realizing where Clay’s mind was going. “I found it in my bag yesterday before leaving school. Someone put it there. I threw it out. But I should’ve realized they might try to take a picture,” he said, shaking his head. 

“What? Why?” But Justin was already reaching for his own phone, and he handed it to Clay.

Clay looked down and saw another fuzzy picture from a blocked number, only this time it was of Tony leaning close to Clay with a hand on his arm. 

Clay actually laughed in surprise, then he looked at Justin worriedly. “Justin, you know this is nothing right?”

“I know,” he said quickly. “Just a stupid attempt to make me jealous or something.”

“This has to be Monty,” Clay said, sighing. Why couldn’t he just leave them alone?

“What the fuck is his end game?”

That was a good question. “I have no idea,” Clay shook his head, taking a seat on his bed. “He could have had you arrested for possession. But he just sends me a picture? And the picture he sent to you... Did he want us to fight? For you to relapse?”

Justin looked just as confused and shrugged. 

“We should tell the others,” Clay said. “Make sure he hasn’t done anything to them. Warn them?”

Justin agreed and then they both tried to get some homework done. 

Later, as Justin showered, Clay stared at the note once again. Only this time he heard the question in Hannah’s voice. _Did you even love me?_

“Y- Yes, I did,” Clay stuttered. 

The detached voice only repeated the question.

“Stop, please,” he said, covering his ears. 

But the voice was in his head and nothing could get in its way of repeating the question. 

“Leave me alone!” he shouted, realizing it had been way too loud as the returning silence echoed in his ears. He’d felt less ridiculous when he could at least see her, instead of this ghost of a voice in his head. 

Not for the first time, Justin found him curled up in a ball on his bed. Only this time, Justin slipped into the bed and Clay curled himself around Justin instead. 

They went to Jess’s after school the next day to tell the group what had happened… for the most part. At this point, Clay didn’t think there was any point to bringing up the note. He wasn’t even sure how it fit into the rest of this plot. 

“Doesn’t this seem weird? Like not what you’d expect him to do?” Alex asked. 

Clay shrugged. “I guess. But he’s fucked with our heads before. The gun? The bullet?” he needlessly reminded Alex. 

“Yeah, but that’s what I mean. That was a lot more aggressive.”

“Yeah,” Zach agreed. “This is like… relationship sabotage.”

Jessica looked like she was barely listening, clearly thinking about something else. “What if he goes to your parents?” she asked Clay suddenly. “If he’s trying to break you up, what if he knows they don’t know?”

“Fuck,” Clay said, rubbing his eyes. “How would he know that though?”

“I don’t know. What if he figures it out?” she asked.

“Then we’ll deal with it,” Clay said. He looked to Justin, who was looking worriedly back. That idea hadn’t occurred to him either. 

“We should get him kicked off the team. He buys urine samples to pass the drug tests you know,” Zach said. 

“That would just piss him off more,” Justin said. 

“We need to get him kicked out of school,” Clay said. 

“How are we gonna do that?” Alex asked. 

“I think I might have an idea,” Justin said sullenly. Clay looked at him with confusion. “Please don’t be mad. I promise, I didn’t do it. But I lied about throwing away the heroin. It’s at home.”

“What? Are you kidding me?” Clay felt like he’d been slapped. “You, what, kept it just in case?” he asked a little hysterically.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry, okay?” Justin replied fiercely. Then looking away, he added more softly, “I just wanted to know that I could stop myself.” 

Clay didn’t know what to say. He hated that Justin would lie to him about it, but he wanted so badly to believe him now. He shut his eyes and tried to breathe. The others all stood in shocked silence, watching them. 

“What is your plan?” Clay asked. 

“We put it in his gym locker and call the cops. Anonymously or something,” Justin said quietly. 

The group was silent. “Would that work?” Clay asked, looking at Alex. 

Alex looked surprised at the question. Sure, he wasn’t an expert in law, but his dad wanted Monty caught as much as they did after everything he already did to them. 

“I mean, he’s a minor. He probably won’t go to jail. But the school would have to do something right?” Alex looked around at the others. 

“This is insane,” Clay said. 

“But it just might work?” Justin was trying to sound optimistic and he offered Clay a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Clay couldn’t quite return it yet. He dropped his gaze away, feeling exhausted. 

They spent the rest of the night planning exactly what they needed to do. When they got back home, Clay collapsed on his bed. 

“I’ll sleep over here,” Justin said, starting to clean various papers and comics off the newer bed. 

“Come here,” Clay said, barely still awake. Justin crawled into the bed hesitantly, and Clay wrapped his arms around him. “I trust you.” Maybe he was too tired to be mad, or just tired of always having something to worry about, to fight about. But he knew he wanted to trust Justin. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Justin replied quietly.

“Shh,” Clay responded, kissing his head. Justin just pulled himself tighter against Clay’s chest. 

The weekend passed quietly, full of homework, planning, and nerves.

On Monday morning, Justin opened one of the drawers along the bottom of the Ikea bed, showing Clay the needle and heroin. “I’ll take it,” Clay said. Then responding to Justin’s worried look. “It would be way worse if you were caught with it.”

Clay was nervous all day. As if just having heroin on him at school wasn’t bad enough, they had no idea if their plan would even work. They waited until the end of the day, after the jocks were out on the field for practice. Clay gave Zach the small package since he would be the least suspicious going into the locker room, and knew which locker was Monty’s. Alex and Jess waited in the halls nearby on lookout. 

In the meantime, Justin went to talk to the counselor as a distraction. He asked her if they could go for a walk to talk, and as they left, Clay slipped into the office. They couldn’t risk calling from one of their cell phones and be dragged into the investigation, so he made the call from the counselor’s phone. He did his best to make his voice unrecognizable. He made sure to tell them the students were out practicing and that they needed to get there fast to find the evidence. 

Then they all got the fuck out of there. Alex went home so that he’d be able to give them any news from his dad. 

Clay and Justin sat in Clay’s car parked a ways down the street, staying only close enough that they were able to see the school’s parking lot. 

When two cars from the Sherriff’s office finally showed up, Clay and Justin took huge breaths of relief. Then they watched nervously as the principal came out to meet them and take them inside. They were a little shocked when they came back out with three jocks in tow, but at least Monty was with them. 

“Let’s go,” Clay said, and drove off quickly.

The next day they met up with the others before school, huddling in a circle out in the parking lot. “Did you find out what happened?” Clay asked. 

“Yeah,” Alex laughed. “We didn’t even need to plant the heroin. All three of those idiots had weed in their bags.”

“Seriously?” Clay asked, a little shocked. 

“And,” Alex said more seriously. “Monty was so surprised about the heroin, that he apparently let something slip. Not enough to do anything with, and he luckily kept his mouth shut about planning it on Justin, but my dad said he thinks Bryce is the one who bought it.”

Justin looked sick and Clay’s jaw clenched tight. It made sense now, that everything had been so personal. Monty was still just carrying out Bryce’s fucked up orders. 

The three stood in silence, barely able to revel in their win. At least Monty was dealt with for the time being. The bell rang and they all made their way to their classes. 

Things did start to get a little better at school with Monty gone. The jocks were falling apart with so many of their own missing. They needed someone to flock to, and apparently it was Scott’s turn. Scott, who hadn’t punched Clay in the fight, and who helped them find Monty, and who smiled at Clay when he walked by in the halls. And Clay felt that maybe things could get better.

“Movies tonight?” Jess asked them all after school. “We could go to the Crestmont,” she said carefully. 

Clay froze. He hadn’t been back there since Hannah, had only ever passed by it. The note from Monty still burned a hole in his back pocket but he persisted in telling himself that it didn’t matter, he was fine. It was just a movie theatre. But he hadn’t heard Hannah’s voice in days now, since he yelled at the air to leave him alone.

“Yeah, sounds good,” Clay said, realizing he was actually the first to agree. The others were all watching him. 

“Hey, we don’t have to,” Justin said to him softly. “If it’s still too much…” 

“No, it’s fine. It’s just a place. It’ll always hurt a little, but it’s how we move on,” he offered with a small smile. The annoying truth was that he really had been doing better, had felt that exact way after Hannah’s funeral, after letting her go. He just had to get through this, and he pushed down the thought in the back of his mind that said going back there might bring her back just a little. And he definitely would not think about why it was so damn hard to just throw away the note. 

They’d all gone home for dinner first, Clay’s mom was particularly insistent about family dinners together even since she’d quit her old job and was trying to turn over a new leaf. Clay admired that she was trying, but still felt a little hollow, like too little too late to repair the mistrust between them. 

They ate quickly so they could meet up with everyone at the theatre. But as thwy got closer, Clay’s hands began to shake while he drove and he squeezed them harder on the steering wheel until his knuckles went white. He could see Justin watching him from the corner of his eye, but Justin said nothing, and Clay pretended not to notice. 

Clay was just relieved that they were seeing a comedy, nothing too heavy. It would distract him, he told himself as they all bought their tickets. He kept looking around, trying to think of the time he had spent here with Hannah. But the memories weren’t vivid enough, and nothing triggered Hannah’s voice in his head and the silence was becoming deafening. 

Sitting in the dark theatre, the thoughts began to consume him. _I’m sorry_ he started to say in his head. _Just come back. I’m sorry I told you to leave me alone._ Beside him, Justin reached for his hand and squeezed tight. What should have been a comforting gesture made Clay feel even worse, his stomach tightened. His heart began to race and the thin crumpled paper in his back pocket felt like a brick, weighing him down. _I loved you, I did. But I love him too._ Clay felt the burning tears start to trickle down his cheeks, and he couldn’t bare it any longer. He felt like he was going to burst. He got up from his seat and raced out of the theatre, barely registering Justin calling his name. 

\--

Justin jumped up from his seat to race after Clay. He stopped to turn back to Jess, who was looking panicked. “It’s okay. Stay here, I’ll get him home,” Justin told her and received shushing from several of the movie-goers around him.

He jogged out into the hall and didn’t see Clay anywhere. He ran out the main doors to the street. Clay was sitting on the sidewalk, back against the wall, clenching his fists in his hair and talking to himself. People on the streets gave him a wide berth as they walked around him and gave him strange looks. Justin approached him slowly as he started to hear the words Clay was saying. 

“Please, just answer me! Why won’t you come back?”

“Clay,” he said, kneeling beside the other boy, putting an arm on one of the knees Clay had pulled up to his chest. Clay barely seemed to register him. “Who are you talking to?” He didn’t know what to do to get Clay to look at him. He put his other hand on the back of Clay’s neck and rubbed small circles with his fingers. Clay had stopped talking and he looked up at Justin. Then he seemed to register his surroundings. 

“I want to go home,” he said in a broken voice. 

“Okay, yeah, let’s go,” Justin said, also very eager to get away from the prying eyes of strangers. Justin helped him up and led him to the car, loading Clay into the passenger seat before getting behind the wheel.

Once off the main street, Justin asked quietly. “Clay, who were you talking to?” He was pretty sure he already knew the answer. 

“Hannah,” Clay croaked out, confirming Justin’s thoughts. “She won’t talk to me anymore.”

“How long has it been since she’s talked to you?” Justin asked carefully. 

“A couple days. I told her to leave me alone,” his voice was hollow and distant in a way Justin had never heard. It made his skin crawl. 

Justin didn’t push it any further in the car. Once they were home, Clay curled up on his bed. 

“I’m sorry,” Clay said, sounding a little more himself. “Sorry, that was embarrassing.”

“No, don’t worry about it. Clay, how long have you been talking to Hannah?” Justin asked. This wasn’t a good sign and Justin suddenly remembered several times he’d walked in on Clay talking to himself, or so Justin had thought. 

“She was here,” Clay said softly. “I could see her. Could talk to her. She was right here. Until the funeral.”

“What do you mean she was here?” Justin asked softly. 

“I saw her. I talked to her. She was here!” Clay started to get upset again. 

“Okay. She was here. I believe you,” Justin said, starting to rub calming patterns into Clay’s back. “What sort of things did she say?”

“I don’t know. We just talked about the trial and about everything going on. Look, I know I sound crazy, and I know it was probably all in my head. She couldn’t answer my questions…” Clay trailed off in contemplation. “She told me she was glad I was taking care of you,” he tried to laugh but it seemed to get caught in his throat. 

Justin smiled a little, but was too worried about what this meant for Clay’s mental stability to be endeared by Clay’s subconscious. He had been so wrapped up in his own shit, he’d barely noticed Clay had been breaking down. “I’m sure she would have been.” 

“She was there that night.”

“What night?” Justin asked, confused at the change in Clay’s tone, something like anger sneaking in. 

“That night with the gun. At Bryce’s. When you saved me.”

“ _How do I make her stop?_ ” Justin said, remembering aloud. “Shit, I forgot about that.”

“And then she was gone. I let her go,” Clay’s brow furrowed. “And then I started hearing her again, just a couple times. But I couldn’t see her,” he sounded frustrated. Justin held him tighter. “And now she’s not answering, and…” Clay trailed off. 

“And what? Why do you think she’s not answering?” There was something there, something that Clay wasn’t saying. Justin didn’t want to push him too hard, but the curiosity tugged at his mind. 

Clay reached into the back pocket of his pants. He handed Justin a crumpled piece of paper without making eye contact, even as Justin searched his face for an explanation. 

He looked at the paper and his heart dropped. “From Monty?” he asked quietly. 

Clay just nodded. 

“Clay, you know this is bullshit,” Justin said, his anger for Bryce and Monty rising up in him. “Of course you loved her. Why would you let this get to you?”

Clay stayed silent for a long minute. “Because… if I love you, did I really love her?”

It was a lot for Justin to take in. He needed to focus on helping Clay, so he took a breath to calm his heart that had started to beat wildly in his chest. 

“Of course you did,” Justin said again. “What you feel now could never take away from that. You’re worried that… because I’m a guy… you couldn’t have loved her?” Justin tried to piece together Clay’s thought process.

Clay waited a moment, then nodded slowly. Justin just smiled empathetically, wishing Clay wasn’t so hard on himself. “Clay, you are fine. You are allowed to love us both.”

Clay looked up at Justin finally. Justin held his gaze, trying to drive home the message with his eyes. Then he nodded slowly and readjusted so that his head lay on Justin’s lap. Justin raked his fingers through Clay’s short hair and waited until he was pretty sure Clay was asleep. 

“I love you too,” he whispered softly and smiled to himself.

\--

Waking up in the morning was uncomfortable. Justin’s neck hurt from the awkward position he’d fallen into. Clay was still asleep somehow, so he pulled himself out of bed to go get some coffee for them both. 

When he got back, he woke Clay and handed him the mug. “Oh fuck,” Clay said rubbing at his eyes, seemingly remembering the night before. “I feel like I’m hungover.”

Justin nodded. “You went through a lot last night.” He was sitting on Clay’s desk chair, across from Clay on the bed.

“Shit, Justin, I’m so sorry. For all of that,” Clay started. 

“Stop. Seriously, it’s fine. I’m glad I know what you were going through now,” Justin said sincerely. But there was something he knew he had to talk to Clay about. “Look, I think you need to talk to someone about this.” He wanted to tread lightly, he knew people didn’t usually respond well to being told they were broken, and that’s not what he wanted Clay to think this was. 

“I am talking to someone about it. Right now,” Clay said, suspiciously.

“You know, the meetings I go to are basically like group therapy,” Justin explained. “Maybe… you should have something like that?”

Clay looked confused. “What are you trying to say? You think I’m that fucked up? That I need to be in therapy?” 

“Clay, we’re all fucked up right now. We all need help. I know this is hard, but… you were hallucinating your dead friend,” he winced at his own words.

Clay swallowed audibly, and Justin hoped he wasn’t fucking this up. He didn’t know if Clay remembered everything he’d said last night, but he needed Clay to know how he felt anyway. 

“I love you,” Justin said, and the words came out almost too forcefully. “I want you to be okay. I want both of us to just be okay.” He could hear the desperation in his own voice, the fear of Clay closing up and cutting him off was consuming him. 

Clay’s eyes were wide. “Shit,” he said with a smile. “I thought maybe I dreamed that.”

Justin searched Clay’s face for the anger and betrayal, but found none. He couldn’t help the small, hopeful smile the pulled at his lips. 

“I’ll talk to my parents about it,” Clay said, nodding. “My mom will probably know someone.”

Justin let out a breath of relief and enveloped Clay in a hug. Justin hated that they had to get ready for school. It seemed so meaningless sometimes, in the grand scheme of things. 

“I’m gonna go shower,” Clay said. 

Justin nodded and then Clay leaned in and kissed him softly. They rested their foreheads together briefly. Justin brought his hands up to Clay’s face and kissed him more passionately, trying to channel his feelings into it because the words didn’t feel enough. 

When they broke apart, Clay was smiling at him. “I love you too.”

“Yeah,” Justin said softly. “I know.” And he was surprised that he did actually know it. Didn’t question it or think it too good to be true. It just felt real. 

Clay finally went to go shower and Justin flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, feeling a strange calm come over him. Even with how fucked up he was, he’d still been able to help Clay. They had each other, and while it was exciting, it was also terrifying because it meant he had something to lose.

\--

Downstairs, Lainie paced in the kitchen. She’d only just been able to hold it together when Justin came in to grab two mugs of coffee. 

“Lainie, you have to calm down,” Matt said to her.

“How am I supposed to calm down. What are we going to do?” she responded in a panicked whisper. 

Matt sighed. “I don’t know, but let’s not jump to any conclusions or make any rash decisions. Let’s take some time. Then we’ll talk to the boys,” he said. 

Lainie chewed on her lip, then nodded. It made sense and she was trying to put more trust in Matt with how to handle Clay. She picked her phone up from the table where she had dropped it on Matt’s newspaper. She had to go to work anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thank u so much for reading! come talk to me on tumblr @ allofspace !


	6. I want to

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i reworked this chapter a little a couple days after originally posting (just as an fyi if you previously read this chapter and it seems different)

Justin stared at the floor, like he did for the majority of his NA meetings. He tried to listen to everyone’s stories, to the group leader’s thoughts and words of wisdom. Still, he couldn’t help but zone out sometimes. The girl speaking was a regular, he’d heard her story before and every meeting she had just a little more to add or a different wild perspective. Most of the time Justin couldn’t bring himself to care that much about her drama, but it was especially difficult today. 

He was a mess of excitement, guilt, happiness, and dread ever since he and Clay had said ‘I love you’ to each other. And Justin definitely didn’t regret it, but the reality of the situation had really started to sink in. What would Clay’s parents say when they found out? If things were ever going to be real with him and Clay, they’d have to know. And Justin couldn’t see that going well. Every time he tried to imagine it, things just went horribly wrong. Even if Clay said they wouldn’t be that mad, he hated the thought of them regretting taking him in and looking after him. 

The itch to run away was growing harder to push aside. Clay was the only thing anchoring him down. He smiled at the thought of Clay physically pushing him down, lowering himself onto Justin in their bed. Then came the guilt about the new bed and how weird they’d acted when Lainie suggested it. 

Justin’s head was spinning, the roller coaster of emotions whipping him back and forth. It was dizzying. He just wanted to even everything out, and that’s when the drugs helped. He could just forget about everything he was worrying about, just live in the hazy bubble that enveloped his brain when he was high. He ran his hands through his hair. He wanted to stop feeling so much, but the thought of Clay angry… or disappointed or worried… it made his whole body ache. 

“Justin, would you like a turn?” the group leader asked. His tone was defeated, he was already used to Justin saying no and moving on to the next person. 

Justin chewed his lip. He wanted to say the usual, to remain invisible. He didn’t want to be one of these people who had to cry and complain about their life and how unfair the world has been to them. He did this to himself. He was the one who let Bryce control him, he let all this bad shit happen. But the guilt was getting too much to bear.

He tried to speak, to say _no thanks, I’m good_ but his voice betrayed him. “When things get hard, I run away,” he said quietly. If there had been any other noise in the room, they may not have heard him. He couldn’t look up now, but he could practically feel everyone’s eyes on him, burning holes into him. No one said anything, so he continued. “I don’t want to run away this time. I want to stay, but I – I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?” the group leader asked carefully. 

“That I’ll just fuck everything up. Because I always do.” Justin’s voice was choked, the words barely escaping. He didn’t want to cry in front of all these fucking strangers. He should have never opened his mouth. “I want all these feelings to go away. I want to get high to make it stop.”

Justin finally looked up. He wanted to see the betrayed looks of everyone around him. He wanted them to look disgusted, to see how awful he was and agree that he should just get the fuck out of everyone’s lives. Instead, when he around the circle, he saw most people nodding with sad, kind eyes. Others looked down and away, and the group leader, Steve, Justin remembered, gave him a hopeful smile. 

“That’s why we’re all here, Justin,” Steve said. “And we’re here to help each other get through those feelings.”

Justin thought he should want to roll his eyes, that he shouldn’t be comforted by such empty words. But he couldn’t help but nod, desperately grasping for the lifeline Steve was sending out to him. Grappling for understanding and empathy, which he was suddenly finding all around the room and it hit him like shocking cold ocean waves, stealing the air from his chest.

“Do you want to tell us why you started using?” Steve asked.

Justin shook his head quickly. He didn’t want to talk about his mom or Jess or any of the shit with Bryce. It was too much.

“Okay,” Steve said carefully, like Justin was a wounded dog who might snap and attack him. And maybe he was. Wounded, hurt, defensive, and determined to fight now instead of flee for survival. “How about telling us why you want to stay then? Why you don’t want to run anymore,” Steve tried again.

Justin took a moment. “My, uh –“ and really, this was why he hated talking about things. Nothing was black and white. Nothing was easy. “My boyfriend,” he finally said. He’d never even said the word out loud before, and it felt weird. But the thrill of how it sounded outweighed any discomfort. He watched the reactions around the room, or lack thereof. Steve’s eyebrows raised slightly, and only for a moment, before he trained his features back to normal. “Things are a bit… complicated,” Justin said, and what a fucking understatement that was. “But I want to stay. For him. I want to get better. He, uh, he needs me, and I want to be able to help him like he’s helped me.”

Steve was nodding. “That’s really great, Justin. We shouldn’t only fix ourselves for others, but sometimes it helps us to see our worth when others see it first. It’s good you have someone like that. You can trust each other and depend on each other. It won’t always be easy, but with a good foundation you can get through practically anything.”

He was surprised to feel that Steve really understood him. He couldn’t go into details, but as vague as Justin was being, Steve seemed to have some comment that reassured him a little more each time. It slowly made Justin feel a little less alone, like he wasn’t the most fucked up person in the world.

He left the session feeling more hopeful than he had in months, maybe years, if he was being honest with himself. Clay was waiting in his car outside the building, and when Justin slid in, he quickly pulled the other boy into a tight hug. 

“Woah, hey,” Clay half-laughed. “You okay?” Clay’s arms tightened around Justin. 

“Yeah. Yeah I think I am,” he replied, finally letting go. Clay smiled at him, with a little confusion, but Justin just gave him a small smile back. To try and say ‘don’t even ask because I won’t know what to say’.

“So I talked to my mom,” Clay said as he drove away from the community centre. 

Justin didn’t want to assume he knew what Clay was talking about. “Oh yeah?” he replied, nonchalantly. 

“Yeah,” Clay said. “About therapy.”

Justin felt a little wave of relief. It nearly broke him hearing Clay talk about seeing Hannah. He hated finding Clay curled up in a ball and crying, it made Justin feel so useless. But he could help. He did help. 

“Oh. Good,” Justin said. Clay didn’t need to know all the mushy shit. 

“Yeah, she took it pretty well. But it was a little weird…” Clay said thoughtfully. 

“What do you mean? Like normal weird or weird weird?” Justin asked, a little confused by his own question. He assumed it would be weird to talk to your parents about going to therapy. But Clay’s tone made him think it was something more than that. 

“Weird weird,” Clay said. “I think.” He gave Justin a wry smile. Justin waited for him to elaborate. “I don’t know, when mom got home I told her I needed to talk to her and dad. She looked… panicked. Like I don’t know what she thought I was going to say but she was holding my dad’s hand like so tight. And then she looked relieved almost when I told her about seeing Hannah and wanting to go to therapy.”

Justin’s eyebrows pulled together. It did sound a bit weird. What could she have thought Clay was going to say? And then he swallowed hard. 

“Do you think she knows? Or suspects? And thought you were going to tell her? About us?” Justin asked, trying to wrap his head around it. 

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think she would say something if she knew.” Clay seemed to think about it. He didn’t sound like he really believed his own words. 

“We should just tell them,” Justin said. It made him feel sick to think about, but so was constantly worrying. “I can’t live like this anymore. If they’re going to kick me out or something then I’d rather know sooner than later.”

“I wouldn’t let them,” Clay said firmly. Then he added almost as an afterthought, “And they wouldn’t. They’re good people. I just don’t know if they’ll want us sharing a room anymore, let alone a bed.” Clay smiled at him again, trying to lighten the mood. 

Justin thought about that. Hated the thought of it. He just didn’t see a way around it anymore. 

“Do you really want to tell them?” Clay asked, looking pained. 

Justin didn’t want to make Clay do anything he didn’t want to, but he had to think this would be for the best. He needed some solid ground to stand on for once. “Look, I know you don’t like talking to your parents a lot of the time, but I just need to know what’s going to happen. And I want you to know I’m not going anywhere,” he said, reaching over to intertwine their hands. “But I only want to if you’re going to be okay with it.” 

Clay sighed. “It’s going to be so fucking awkward,” he laughed. “Fine. But can we at least wait a couple days? Think about how to tell them?” 

Justin couldn’t help but smile a little as he nodded, the flood of relief plus Clay’s hand squeezing his own drowning out the anxiety just enough. 

When they got home, Clay’s parents were at the dining table, talking in hushed tones. Justin immediately felt like they’d walked in on something, as both of them sat upright away from each other, giving overly wide smiles and loud greetings when the boys walked in. 

Justin looked at Clay and Clay returned the look. “Hi,” Clay said back to them and began to make his way upstairs. 

“You don’t want to sit and talk?” Lainie asked, stopping him. She turned to Justin. “You were at a meeting tonight, right?”

Justin nodded. “Uh, yeah.” 

“Is there something we need to talk about?” Clay said. 

“No,” Matt said quickly. Justin noticed the small look Matt gave Lainie, and Lainie looking away awkwardly. “Just wondered if you guys wanted to watch a movie or something.”

Justin could tell Clay really didn’t want to, and even though Justin enjoyed spending some family time with Clay’s parents, he would rather just be with Clay. 

“Maybe this weekend?” Justin offered. “I have – we both have a lot of homework right now.”

“Okay,” Matt said coolly. “Your studies are important. Right Lainie?”

“Yes, of course,” she agreed hastily. 

Justin followed Clay up the stairs to their room and knew the other boy was just as confused as he was. Once the door was closed behind them, silence hung in the air. Justin stood in the middle of the room as Clay took a seat on the bed. 

Surprised Clay wasn’t saying it himself, Justin finally spoke up, voice quiet. “What the fuck was that?”

“I don’t know, maybe nothing?” Clay said hopefully.

“They were being weird though, right?” Justin asked, wanting to know they were clear on that at least. 

“I mean, yeah a little I guess.”

“Dude, you are in denial,” Justin said, rolling his head. “That was so weird. Something is up. Fuck!” Justin rubbed his face. “What if they know? What if they just get angrier about it the longer they know we’re lying to them?”

Clay got up from the bed and pulled Justin into a hug he couldn’t return. This was everything he wanted to avoid in the first place! Why he just wanted to tell them already. 

“Hey, it’s okay. They’ve confronted me about secrets I’ve tried to hide from them a hundred times. They don’t just… wait or whatever.”

Justin pulled back to look up at Clay from under his eyelashes. “Really?”

“Yes,” Clay said firmly. “It has to be something else.”

Justin nodded, then lowered his head down to Clay’s shoulder and hugged him back. Clay was warm and solid under his touch and it calmed him. He turned his head to rub the tip of his nose against Clay’s neck, which earned him a soft chuckle. Then he began to place soft kisses there instead, slowly working his way up to Clay’s strong jaw and back down to his shirt collar. 

“We really do have a lot of work to do,” Clay said half-heartedly. As if Justin would be deterred so easily. 

“Mhm,” he replied as he kept kissing. He paused only to lift Clay’s shirt up and over his head so he had more skin to touch and kiss. Clay brought a hand to Justin’s chin, guiding their mouths together instead and Justin walked Clay backward to the bed. They laughed as they stumbled onto the bed and their teeth clicked together before the kisses became more heated. Justin straddled Clay, taking the lead as he usually did, when Clay suddenly flipped them over to reverse their positions. 

Justin’s stomach did an excited flip of its own, unsure of what to expect. Their eyes met and he felt Clay was trying to ask him or tell him something that Justin couldn’t figure out. Then Clay slowly kissed his way down Justin’s body, lifting them hem of his shirt out of the way and undoing his pants. Justin’s heart raced as he realized what Clay meant to do with that mouth of his. 

“Clay, you don’t have to,” he said, even though he wanted it so fucking badly. They hadn’t even talked about stuff like this or what they were both comfortable with doing. 

“I want to,” he said, licking a stripe along Justin’s hip. 

Justin didn’t have it in him to say anything else, so he reached for the pillow behind his head to cover his face, to stifle the moans that he soon had no control over. It was all over far too quick and although his body was completely exhausted, he helped Clay finish as well. He was surprised how close Clay was already; blowjobs clearly turned him on and that thought itself was almost enough to have Justin ready again. 

Clay collapsed to Justin’s side until Justin nudged him to go get a towel since his stomach was sticky mess. As Clay climbed over him, he lowered his face down to meet Justin’s slowly. Their lips met softly and it barely registered with Justin that perhaps he should be grossed out by this, but he actually didn’t care at all. 

They were able to get a bit of homework done, avoiding going downstairs and seeing Clay’s parents as much as possible. Justin was surprised with himself at how well he was catching up with his studies. He wasn’t getting straight A’s or anything, but he didn’t feel like he was clueless like he used to feel in some of his classes. It was nice to just be able to focus on school and not worry about sports and the drama that came with it. 

His eyes were getting tired from staring at his math textbook. He looked over at Clay who was rubbing his eyes and obviously feeling the same way. He walked over and stood behind Clay’s chair, wrapping his arms around the other boy’s shoulders and pressing his cheek to the top of Clay’s head. The short hair there was soft but felt spiky against Justin’s face. He placed a kissed there and then got ready for bed. Clay followed shortly after.

Clay slid into the bed, wrapping an arm around Justin, pressing his face into Justin’s chest and mumbled ‘I love you’ quietly in the darkness. 

“I love you too,” Justin said back, just as quiet. Afraid that if he spoke any louder it would burst some imaginary bubble they were in. In the dark, Justin could pretend none of the outside world existed. He could only feel Clay pressed against him, heart beating against his stomach, breath hot on his chest, could feel Clay’s ribs under his fingertips and it was some of the only time he felt truly relaxed and eased into sleep.

The next day, Justin was headed to the cafeteria for lunch, looking forward to seeing Clay. It was still a little exhilarating sitting close or holding hands out in public. He had been a little surprised that they hadn’t taken much shit for it, but the school definitely seemed to have mellowed out after Monty and the others had been suspended.

He couldn’t help but imagine again what it would have been like if he still played basketball. Looking up at the stands to see Clay, waving at him from the court, maybe Clay even wearing his letterman jacket. He laughed at himself a little, at his ridiculously cheesy fantasy. Clay would totally make fun of him if he ever knew. Maybe he’d tell him just to hear Clay laugh and tease him. 

He was a little lost in thought as he walked through the halls. There weren’t many people as most were already in the cafeteria. But some movement caught his eye through a window facing the parking lot. He walked over to the doors and saw a small boy being pushed between two other boys. Justin’s hand tightened into a fist and he looked around for a teacher maybe, but no one was nearby and Justin never wanted to turn a blind eye to anything again. 

He opened the doors as the smaller boy was being pushed to the ground. As he got closer, he realized they were all fairly young, probably freshman. Even after everything that happened in this school, there would always be new kids that didn’t understand, that were unaffected and would continue the vicious cycle. He hated it. 

“Hey get off him!” he yelled as one of the bigger kids had been holding the smaller one down. The two bullies looked up in surprise, and then took off running down the side of the school and around the corner. 

Justin went to help the kid on the ground who was wiping loose gravel off himself.

“Are you okay?” Justin asked a little awkwardly. He wished he actually knew what to do in this situation. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” the kid said angrily, pulling his arm away when Justin tried to help him up. 

“Those guys pick on you often?” Justin said. 

“What do you care?” the boy said defensively. 

Justin took a second to think. “Because I know what can happen if you let people get away with stuff like this.”

The boy scoffed. “So what, are you gonna help me beat them up or something?”

Justin couldn’t help but laugh a little. “No. We are going to go tell a teacher,” he said. 

The boy’s eyes widened. “What? No way. I’m not gonna be a nark.”

Justin took a deep breath, unsurprised by the boy’s reaction. “What’s your name?”

The boy watched Justin suspiciously for a moment. “Max,” he finally replied. 

“Cool, my name’s Justin.”

The boy just stared at him, unimpressed. 

“Listen Max,” Justin started, unsure exactly where he would go with this. He wasn’t exactly the poster boy for Doing The Right Thing. “I know it feels like no one understands you. Like adults don’t care about your problems. Maybe even like you’re completely alone, with all these huge things to deal with and maybe it feels overwhelming sometimes.” 

Max was staring down at his feet and Justin thought at least something in there was right. He wished no kid had to feel this way. He knew he was being hypocritical, but he wished he’d learned at a younger age that just because he couldn’t trust some of the adults in his life, didn’t mean all of them would hurt him. Instead he just learned that your friends could hurt you too. 

“Sometimes you can’t fix these problems yourself. And sometimes, when you let someone help, it doesn’t seem as impossible anymore,” Justin continued. “I’ll go with you okay? I know the school counsellor. I can talk to her with you. I’ll make sure she doesn’t do anything you’re not okay with.”

Justin hoped that would entice Max, and he hoped even more he’d be able to keep that promise. He never thought of himself as a persuasive person, so he was a little surprised when the boy nodded and let Justin guide him inside. 

He walked with the boy to the counsellor’s office, and then he went in first to tell her what had happened. She told him to call Max in and listened to what the boy had to say. 

When they were done, Justin realized how long it had all taken, and the lunch period was practically over. After giving a small fist-bump to Max, he checked his phone to see a bunch of texts from Clay and raced to the cafeteria. 

“Hey, where were you?” Clay asked as Justin sat down beside him at the table. “And why do you look so happy?”

Only then did Justin realized his face actually hurt from smiling. It shrunk a little with embarrassment. “Sorry, I was helping this kid.”

Clay looked confused and intrigued, smiling a little at Justin’s odd behavior. 

“I’ll tell you later?” he offered, not wanting to get into it in front of their friends at the table. 

“Sure,” Clay said, leaning in to kiss Justin quickly. That earned them a round of _oooh_ ’s from the table and then they all broke into laughter. 

The bell rang and Justin walked Clay to class with an arm around his shoulder, feeling content. Maybe helping Clay hadn’t been a fluke. It made Justin feel good that he was able to help people and something about that made him feel a little more whole, a little less broken. 

On the way home from school, Justin told Clay what happened with Max. Clay seemed surprised, but he sounded sincere when he told Justin how proud he was of him.

“You’re right. About what you told that kid,” Clay said seriously. “We should tell my parents tonight.” 

As much as Justin wanted this, he suddenly became sick with nerves. But he nodded and agreed. This would never be easy, but at least they could tell them on their own terms and they could stick together.

When they got home, they were surprised to see both Matt and Lainie at the kitchen table. It was very early for Lainie to be home from work. It caught the boys a little off guard since they had been counting on some time aline to make a game plan. 

Lainie stood up as they walked in. “Boys we need to talk to you now,” she said and Justin’s heart rate sky-rocketed. He couldn’t tell if she was angry or upset, but he hadn’t heard her talk to them in a tone like that for a long time now. 

Matt seemed to be trying to calm her down. Justin turned to Clay, who also looked nervous, but led their way to the kitchen. Once they sat, Matt was the first to speak. 

“Look, you’re not in trouble,” he said, always the diplomat. It did little to calm Justin’s nerves. He wasn't sure how they would know about him and Clay but there was nothing else they could be this upset about. 

Lainie had calmed down a little by the time she spoke. “After everything that’s happened, I hope you boys know you can be honest with us,” she said. Her pleading tone caused a wave of guilt in Justin. 

“I’m so sorry,” Justin said, unable to stop himself. “You guys have been so nice to me, I didn’t want to do anything that could jeopardize it.”

“Justin,” Clay said, panicked. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to comfort Justin, or if he wanted him to stop talking. 

“You know we want to help you, but there’s only so much we can do,” Lainie said. It felt like a punch to Justin’s chest. 

“Mom!” Clay said. “You can’t just give up on him because of this. It’s my fault too.”

“What do you mean, your fault? And why wouldn’t you tell us?” She sounded tired and disappointed. Justin felt like his world was collapsing in on him fast and he didn’t know how to stop it. This wasn’t the conversation he’d imagined in his head. 

“How did you find out?” Clay asked Lainie instead of answering her questions. 

“Someone sent us a picture,” Lainie said. 

Shit, it had to have been Monty before he was suspended. Justin thought of all the times they kissed or held hands at school. How could they have been so stupid when they knew Monty had taken pictures before?

“I’m sorry, I’ll leave if you want me to. I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Justin said, tears starting to pool in his eyes. 

“ _We_ didn’t mean for this to happen,” Clay said strongly. “But it did.” Then he took Justin’s hand and intertwined their fingers. “And Justin isn’t going anywhere.”

Justin stared at their hands in shock, then up at Matt and Lainie, who looked equally surprised. 

“Clay, I don’t understand what you have to do with Justin using drugs,” Lainie said, looking back and forth between Clay and the boys’ hands intertwined on the table. 

Clay didn’t respond immediately and Justin watched his face morph from stubborn to confused. “I’m sorry,” he said, closing his eyes briefly. “What picture were you sent?”

Justin still couldn’t form a word. Thoughts raced through his mind but nothing was currently making sense. Until Lainie pulled out her phone and showed them the photo. The same blurry photo that Clay had received of Justin holding a tin foil ball of what was presumably heroin, and a needle. 

“We didn’t want to jump to conclusions,” Matt said calmly. 

“We wanted you to come to us,” Lainie interjected. 

“But Lainie got a call about another boy at school getting caught with heroin and she panicked.”

Justin stared at the picture. “I didn’t do it,” he was finally able to say. “That guy, Monty, was just trying to get me in trouble.” The explanation seemed to fall flat. Like this was already inherently obvious, but Justin had felt he still needed to say it. 

“Oh, okay,” Lainie said. “So what exactly were you apologizing for?” She was looking pointedly at Justin’s hand still gripped in Clay’s. 

Justin looked at Clay, who was wide-eyed and Justin could practically hear Clay’s brain telling him to lie, that they could still get out of this somehow. He expected Clay to rip his hand away and start rambling some excuse, but he didn’t. He squeezed tighter instead. Justin squeezed back. 

“Justin and I are… dating,” he said, looking extremely uncomfortable. 

Justin felt the faintest trace of a smile cross his face and then disappear as he waited for the parents’ reactions. 

“Oh,” Matt said first. He actually looked the most surprised of the two. “Well, it’s not as bad as a relapse.” It was a failed attempt at lightening the mood. No one laughed. 

“We could unadopt you,” Lainie said to Justin. 

His heart dropped and his jaw clenched. 

“Mom!” Clay said harshly, sitting up straighter, defensively. 

“When he’s 18,” she added quickly, looking between Matt and Clay. “When you’re 18,” she said again to Justin. “You wouldn’t need guardians anymore and that way you wouldn’t be… brothers,” she said.

Justin exhaled loudly. “Oh,” he said. “Thanks?”

Justin had no idea what was going on anymore. The conversation had already gone so far off the rails, he didn’t know what to say. 

“So,” Clay said, breaking the heavy silence that had been created. “To be clear. You had no idea about this –“ He gestured between he and Justin. “And you were worried Justin was doing drugs again?”

“Sounds about right,” Matt said. 

“I think I maybe knew,” Lainie said quietly, staring across the room like she was talking to no one in particular. 

“Sorry we didn’t tell you sooner,” Clay said guiltily.

Lainie shook her head and laughed slightly. “They definitely don’t have a rule book for this.”

Justin thought Lainie might be in shock a little. Maybe they all were. He figured there would be more yelling, more rule-making, more... something. 

“How about we go out for dinner?” Matt suggested. 

Justin definitely didn’t feel like going out, but he also couldn’t imagine going upstairs and trying to do homework right now. They drove to the restaurant in silence, but it somehow felt reassuring. He didn’t have the feeling of impending doom. Instead he had the feeling there would be a lot of awkward ‘family talks’ in their future, but he also felt like they would survive it. 

“Table for 4?” the hostess asked as they entered. 

“Yes please,” Matt replied. 

“Having a nice family dinner?” she asked cheerfully. 

“Yes,” Matt replied again as she led them to their table. 

“You two don’t look like brothers,” she observed as Clay and Justin sat down. They stared back at her awkwardly for a moment. 

“They’re not,” Lainie said with a dismissing smile. 

The hostess’ smile faltered at Lainie’s tone and then she was gone. Justin and Clay look at each other then they both gave Lainie shy, thankful smiles. This would definitely be awkward, but they would get through it.


	7. Troubled Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Accidentally coming out to Clay's parents had gone surprisingly well, but no one really thought that would last, did they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *a wild update appears*  
> At long last!!! Please forgive me haha  
> Also, I've updated the playlist which you can listen to on 8tracks!  
> https://8tracks.com/allofspace/i-need-you

“I’m going to be honest with you Clay, because I think that it’s important for you to know we don’t always have the answers. We don’t exactly know what to do here.”

Clay chewed on his lip nervously. His mom had thought this was necessary; to have a talk with just Clay and his parents, and Clay was still trying to figure out where it was going. 

Things had been weird and tense since he and Justin had sort of accidentally came out to his parents. Really, that was mostly Clay’s fault for not clarifying what the fuck they were all talking about first. But Justin had been a nervous wreck too and was definitely on the verge of saying it all himself anyway. 

It was better that it was all out in the open now though. Right? He had to hope it would be. It was too late to hope for any other option. 

Justin had stayed late at school with more extra-curricular work. It had been hard for Clay to focus in class so he didn’t know how Justin was managing. The whole day had been a little awkward and they hadn’t talked much. They’d slept in separate beds for the first time, and his mom had come in to “say goodnight” but Clay knew it was to check on them. She very clearly kept the door wide open when she left and it stayed that way all night. 

They’d both been tired in the morning, but Clay kept forgetting things and was running around the house frantically looking for one thing after another. Justin was waiting in the car by the time Clay was finally rushing out. His dad had called him from the kitchen. 

“What’s Justin doing after school?” his dad had asked. 

“Uh, I think he’s staying late to do extra work,” Clay had answered, short of breath. 

“Okay. Good. Your mother wants to have a talk,” his dad had responded and then looked back down at his paper, dismissing him. 

Justin hit the horn from the car, and Clay moved back into action. Clay debated not telling Justin about what his dad had just told him, but he didn’t like keeping secrets and thought it would give them a chance to talk about things. Apparently Justin didn’t agree, because he only gave Clay a brief worried look, then shrugged and sank low into the seat. The rest of the car ride was quiet. 

When they got to school, Justin hopped out and walked into the school without even waiting for Clay. He figured Justin needed some space or something, but he hated giving it to him. He wanted to instead just shake him until it got through to Justin that he could talk to Clay about anything. He would just have to try getting it through to him later that night. In the meantime, they both had to try to focus on school. 

Now, Clay was sitting across from his parents, feeling awkward about having a serious family talk without Justin. He’d been a part of things for so long now. He really wished Justin were with him now, if only so Clay could hold his hand or press their shoulders together for comfort. 

“Why didn’t you want Justin here for this?” Clay asked, not responding to what his mom had just said. It didn’t comfort him to hear his parents admit that they didn’t know what they were doing. 

His mother looked at him with a pained expression, then to his father. “We thought we just needed to have a talk first, within the family,” she said. 

“He is family,” Clay said immediately. 

“You can’t have both Clay,” his mother responded sharply. “We can’t keep everything the same as it’s been. Have you thought about what happens if you break up? Or if you fight? We’re just trying to figure out what makes sense here.” 

Clay’s jaw was tight. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to be thinking about any of this. 

“Maybe you need to think about if you two being together right now makes sense.”

Clay’s head shot up. He glared at his mother. What was she saying? She wanted them to break up now so she didn’t have to deal with it in the future? He looked to his dad, who was silent but looking guilty. A part of Clay thought maybe they were right, maybe this was a bad idea, but it was too late now, Clay loved Justin too much to let him go.

“I love him,” Clay said. The anger in him made it feel like he wasn’t even in his own body, like he was watching from an outside perspective. 

His parents both looked a little taken aback. 

“I’m not going to break up with him so it’ll be easier on you. I’d move out of this house before I do that,” Clay said and stood up.

“Clay, wait," his dad finally chimed in. “She didn’t mean… we just want…”

But Clay had grabbed his things and was already out the door. He got in the car and called Justin. He didn’t answer, so Clay texted him instead. He turned on the car and headed for the school. He would just have to go try and find him. He didn’t want to distract Justin from his schoolwork, but Clay really needed him right now. 

When he got there, students were still loitering in the halls and spread out around the library. Clay practically searched the whole school twice, before finally giving up. He’d called Justin several more times and texted him too. Clay really didn’t want to overreact but he was starting to panic. After all the shit that happened at this school, he couldn’t help but be worried. A million possibilities jumped into his head. 

“Jessica, hey,” Clay said, relieved that she finally picked up. 

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Have you heard from Justin at all? I can’t find him and he’s not answering his phone and I’m trying not to freak out.”

“Uh, no. Not since school,” she said. “Sorry. I’m sure he’s fine, though. You should just… go home Clay. When I saw him earlier he seemed upset. Just give him some time.”

Her words did not help to ease him much, but maybe she was right about giving Justin some space. He wished he’d never told Justin about the talk with his parents, and he wished even more he hadn’t gone to talk with them. Everything had seemed like it might actually be all right the night before, and now everything was quickly falling apart. 

He texted Zach and Alex just in case, but neither of them had seen or heard from Justin. So Clay went for a walk. He walked until it got dark and then well after that. He suddenly wished he still had his bike. The car was obviously nice of course, but sometimes it felt so freeing on his bike. To know he could just go anywhere, feel the wind in his hair, the burning through his legs. 

He got back to his house after midnight, making sure to enter as quietly as he could. He was relieved that his parents weren’t waiting up to ambush him. When he got to his room, he didn’t expect to see Justin… so he didn’t know why he was so disappointed at seeing the two empty beds. 

Clay laid down fully dressed, rubbing his hands over his face. He tried not to let his mind wander to all the awful possibilities. He just hoped Justin was okay, wherever he was. Ignoring Clay was the best-case scenario Clay could think of right now. 

He didn’t think he would be able to sleep, but the walking must have tired him out more than he’d thought as it became harder and harder to stay awake, until finally he gave up trying. 

When Clay woke up, he laid with his eyes closed, hoping the day before had all been a bad dream and that Justin would be there. He already knew, as he opened his eyes, he wouldn’t be so lucky. He could hear his parents downstairs, plates and utensils clinging. He got out of the uncomfortable clothes he fell asleep in, showered, and got ready for the day. At least he’d be able to talk to Justin at school.

He rushed down the stairs and headed straight for the door. He had no intention of talking to his parents. 

“Hey, wait! Did Justin come home last night?” his mom asked. He bitterly thought that the worry in her voice sounded fake.

“No, not like you care anyway. This is what you wanted right?” he said.

“Clay, no, this isn’t –“ Clay heard his mom start, but then he was already out the door. 

When Clay got to school, he tried to push down the anger that was rising regarding his parents. His worry about Justin started to creep in instead, but he tried to stay calm even as his head whipped around, looking in every direction to spot Justin. If Justin was avoiding him, it would be fairly easy to do since the school was big enough. Clay wanted to think that’s what was going on, but it didn’t actually do anything to ease his mind. 

He could understand if Justin was upset or not feeling great about things, but Clay didn’t think that would warrant ignoring him like this. Making him worry like this. He wanted to think Justin wouldn’t be so selfish. So where did that leave him? All Clay knew was he couldn’t think about either possibility right now, or what each one meant. Instead, he just had to focus on finding out the truth. 

By lunch time, Clay was expecting to find Justin in the cafteria and confront him. He was feeling more certain that no news was good news. If something bad happened to Justin, it would have been reported and Clay’s parents notified. He sat down at an empty table and watched people filter in and out of the cafeteria. 

“Woah, what’s with the murder face?” Tony said, jokingly. Clay hadn’t noticed him approach the table.

“What? Oh. I didn’t realize,” Clay said, trying to relax his face and feeling self-conscious. He didn’t bother trying to return Tony’s friendly smile and Tony’s face hardened in return. 

“It’s cool. What’s going on though?” Tony asked. 

Clay sighed, closing his eyes briefly. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Have you seen Justin today?”

“No,” Tony said slowly. “But I don’t usually see him until lunch. Why?”  
Clay shook his head. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to admit the two bad options he saw in his head, but maybe Tony would be able to help in some way. He was going crazy keeping this to himself. “We sort of came out to my parents,” Clay said, watching as Tony carefully kept his reaction low-key. “It was all a bit much, and it was fine at first but then my parents were being pretty weird and I think Justin maybe freaked out a little.”

Tony looked like he was about to say something pointless, like about Justin needing time to cool off and to give him some space. Clay didn’t want to give him the chance because he’d already thought of all of it.

“He stayed late at school yesterday, but when I came to see him, he wasn’t here. He’s not answering my calls or texts. And I don’t know if he ran away or if he’s dead in a ditch somewhere, and I can’t decide which one would make me angrier right now,” Clay blurted out all at once, voice rising and words quickening throughout. 

Tony looked around as Clay huffed deep breaths through his nose and tried to calm down. Apparently he hadn’t been loud enough to make a scene, which was good. 

A loud clattering came from the other end of the room. Clay and Tony both looked up to see Alex on the ground with Zach beside him trying to help him up. 

“Get off of me! Just leave!” Alex yelled. Zach threw his hands up in the air and walked back out of the cafeteria. Alex slowly got up and the silence that had fallen over the room picked back up to a steady buzz of voices. 

Clay and Tony looked at each and then back to Alex, who was brushing dirt off his clothes as he spotted them. Even from far away, Clay could see the anger in him, in the way he was carrying himself.

He’d never seen Alex walk so fast, marching with purpose, struggling to keep up the pace with his own cane. He B-lined for their table. 

“Do you know where Justin is?” Alex asked. His voice was hushed but the anger was evident. Clay was just thankful he wasn’t screaming, but he hadn’t expected this to be about Justin.

“No. What’s –“ Clay tried to ask, but apparently it had been a rhetorical question.

“They’re cheating on us. Together. I found him and Jessica in bed this morning,” Alex said. He was close to the point of maniacal laughter. 

Clay’s mouth gaped open. This wasn’t an option he’d even considered. “What? You must have it wrong. There’s probably…” Clay struggled to find the words. His own mind screamed at him to give in to the anger. It made sense didn’t it? “I called her last night. She said… she hadn’t seen him,” Clay said, thinking out loud. Putting the pieces together himself. 

“She lied. Obviously,” Alex said matter-of-factly. “And why lie otherwise? They were in bed together!” 

“Where’s Jessica?” Clay asked. Maybe if they talked to her, they could get her to explain. 

“What, you didn’t notice? Neither of them are here today,” Alex said bitterly. The words hit Clay like a punch to the stomach.

He couldn’t see another explanation. Alex was making sense. Why lie if there was nothing to hide? Why skip school to avoid seeing your friends unless you couldn’t explain? Clay was being torn up inside, half of him not wanting to believe it, but the other half seeing all the evidence laid out before him and finding it impossible to ignore. 

“You guys need to calm down,” Tony interjected. Clay had forgotten he was even there. His tone was even and serious, and thankfully not at all condescending. Tony probably didn’t know what to believe either, but was afraid of what Clay and Alex might do. 

“I’m fine,” Clay said, lying. His pulse had sky-rocketed and he felt like he was burning up. He might have snapped the words out a bit too harshly as Tony didn’t seem convinced. 

“Well I’m not,” Alex said louder. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Hey,” Clay said sharply. “If they did this, they did it together. I’m the one who gets to be mad at Justin.”

Alex just rolled his eyes, but didn’t respond. He rubbed a hand over his face and through his short hair, fidgeting with his clothing and shuffling his feet. He looked antsy and impatient. Clay was fighting the same urges inside. 

“Let’s just wait until after school, then we’ll get to the bottom of this,” Tony said reasonably. 

“Sorry Tony. There’s no ‘we’ here,” Clay said, grabbing his bag and getting up from the table. He didn’t want to deal with anyone, not even Alex, who may understand what he was going through, but was more a bad reminder than any sort of consolation. 

He looked at his unanswered texts to Justin. They were all too nice and Clay felt like an idiot now. He’d been so worried, hoping Justin hadn’t been left for dead somewhere, meanwhile he’d been in bed with Jessica. Clay had to clamp his teeth together tightly to diffuse to the rising anger. 

He walked to the parking lot to get some fresh air, taking a deep breath before typing out a new text. 

_Where the fuck are you_  
Send.  
Clay waited only a couple of seconds before sending the next one.  
_You need to fucking call me_  
Send.  
Clay waited a little longer this time.  
_Did you really sleep with Jessica?_  
Clay hesitated. He didn’t want to have a conversation like this over text. Maybe Justin still wouldn’t answer, but maybe if Justin knew that Clay knew, he might be forced to respond sooner instead of staying hidden. If Justin was still with Jessica, Clay hoped he ruined whatever good time they might be having. 

He hit the send button. 

Clay stood in place for a while, staring out at all the cars, not sure what he was expecting. When he finally began to walk back to the school, he did so very slowly, not eager to return to the building before he had to. He was reaching for the door when his phone started to buzz. 

It was Justin. Clay froze, surprise then anger then a hundred other emotions he couldn’t even identify bubbled to the surface. He just stared at the screen until the call ended. Only then did he take a breath. 

There was only a couple seconds before the phone starting to buzz again. This time, he picked up. 

~*~*~

Justin’s phone buzzed yet again, twice in rapid succession. It had probably been a couple hours since the last one, but each time, his heart sunk lower and now it was in the pit of his stomach. 

He looked at the phone, seeing all of Clay’s messages displayed down the lock screen.

“Clay again?” Jess asked. 

Justin replied with a guilty nod. 

“When are you going to talk to him?” she asked softly. She threw a rock into the small creek that ran through the forest. They’d walked aimlessly for a while before sitting down to listen to the rushing water. 

“I don’t know,” Justin said.

His phone had died the night before when he was at Jess’s and he hadn’t noticed. He wouldn’t have answered Clay anyway, but when he borrowed her charger this morning, all the worried texts made him feel like an ass. He felt even worse for making Jess lie to Clay about him being at her house when he’d called. And yet he was still too scared to face him. 

“Have you talked to Alex?” Justin asked. She’d been giving him a look that he thought was a bit hypocritical. His question made her look away guiltily. 

His phone buzzed again. He took a deep breath, his eyes shut tight. Maybe he shouldn’t look anymore, until he was actually ready to do something about it all.  
He couldn’t help the urge to check though. Maybe it would be Clay finally giving up on him, like Justin always expected him to. 

“Fuck,” he said as he read the text. “I thought you said Alex wouldn’t say anything to Clay?”

Jess looked up at him quickly. “I really didn’t think he would. He’s so fucking dramatic. What did he even tell Clay?”

“Apparently that we cheated on them together,” Justin said. There was panic rising in him a little. 

“What?” Jess said. She sounded annoyed, but nowhere close to what he felt. 

He didn’t want Clay to think Justin could ever do that to him. Justin may be paranoid that Clay was going to leave him anyway, but he would never want it to be because of this. 

“Fucking Alex!” Justin yelled, throwing his head back. “I have to call Clay.” He began to walk, trying to find his way out of the forest so there would be no chance that shitty reception would get in the way.

“Justin, wait!” Jess said, already far behind him. He ignored her; she could catch up with him. He was almost out to the road, so he started to call Clay. 

He listened to the ringing, hoping Clay would answer, but having no idea what to say or where to start. 

The ringing stopped and an automated voice starting talking as Justin hit the End Call button. He checked the time. Clay would still be on lunch. Justin didn’t blame him for ignoring his call after what Justin had done to him. 

He tried again anyway. This time, there were only a couple rings before they stopped. There was silence on the other end, but he could hear faint noises in the background so he knew Clay had answered. 

“Clay,” Justin said desperately. “Alex has no idea what he’s talking about. I’m sorry I haven’t been answering you. Please just let me explain.” 

“You had Jess lie to me,” Clay said quietly, but his voice rough. It cause a stabbing feeling in Justin’s chest. 

“I’m so sorry. But it didn’t have anything to do with her.” It was all Justin could think to say. There was a long silence between them that Justin didn’t know how to fill. He didn’t think Clay wanted him to fill it. 

“What did Alex see?” Clay asked. 

“I stayed at Jess’s last night. We fell asleep on her bed. That’s all. I promise,” Justin tried to put every ounce of sincerity he could into the words. Clay had to believe him. A part of Justin wanted to just tell Clay he loved him, but another part of him couldn’t. It was self-defense. 

“I have to go,” Clay said. 

Justin started to tell him not to, but the call had been ended. He looked around and spotted Jess a little further down the road, waving one hand around in frustration as the other held a phone to hear ear. 

He started to walk toward her and she’d hung up by the time he got there. 

“Alex?” he asked. It was her turn to answer in silence with a nod. “He needs to tell Clay it’s not true.”

“Yeah, I didn’t get that far,” she said. Then she gave Justin an apologetic smile. “We started to argue again, but I got him to agree to meet me at Monet’s later.” 

Justin gave a small nod as he thought through everything. If Alex could just calm down and be reasonable, he could tell Clay he’d been wrong, and everything would be fixed. Or at least it would be a start. It hurt Justin to know Clay was hurting so badly, and that he’d caused it. But it had to be a good sign that Clay cared so much, right?

Justin had been worried that Clay was going to break up with him. That Clay’s parents were going to sit him down and convince him it was for the best. Why else would they not want Justin to be there after they’d to tried so hard to make him part of the family? Everything seemed fine the other night after Clay’s parents found out about them, but Justin knew it wouldn’t last. It all seemed a bit too fake, too surreal. 

“Can I stay at your place again tonight?” Justin asked. 

Jess nodded. “Yeah, of course. I’ll tell dad.”

He figured Clay wouldn’t want to see him, and even if Justin wanted to talk to Clay, he still couldn’t face Clay’s parents. Once he did, everything would be over and ruined completely. He just knew the talk they’d had with Clay couldn’t have been good. Clay had texted him ‘we need to talk’ and other ominous things. 

Unable to concentrate on his work, Justin had packed up his things and was going to leave the school, maybe walk around for a while, when he found Jess crying in the hall by her locker. 

She wouldn’t even tell him what was wrong, so he took her home. It felt good to be able to help her, to be her friend like this. When she was finally able to talk, she told him about her argument with Alex. He was a little surprised at what it had been about, but then again maybe not surprised enough. 

In turn, he’d told her about Clay and everything that had happened, and how absolutely terrified he was. Jess just listened, and after all of it was out in the open, she gave him some solid advice that he absolutely ignored. He wasn’t ready for everything with Clay to end in some huge disaster. Yet it seemed like that’s what was happening now anyway. 

Neither of them had wanted to go to school in the morning to face their problems. Justin knew he couldn’t keep this up though, and tried not to worry that it could set him back from graduating. 

He and Jess wasted the rest of the afternoon until it was time for Jess to go meet Alex. 

“I’m scared,” Jess admitted. 

“Of what?” Justin asked, though he felt he already knew. 

“That it’s really going to end. Even though I know it already has.”

Justin nodded. He knew how she felt. But things with her and Alex were definitely different than his situation. He wanted to fight for Clay, he just didn’t know how or what he was up against, and he was too scared to even find out. 

“It’s okay,” he said as he leaned in to hug her. 

He stayed at her house and tried to do some homework as he waited for her to come back. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too long, and he really hoped Alex wouldn’t continue to be such an asshole. 

Justin took out his phone and texted Clay to tell him he was staying at Jess’s. Better safe than sorry this time. He could see that Clay had read the text, but he didn’t respond. 

~*~*~

Clay had thought about not going home. But in truth, he didn’t have anywhere else to go. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone, let alone his parents, but at least he could be alone if he could just make it upstairs. 

When he walked in, he was surprised to see his mom sitting at the table. 

“Is Justin okay?” she asked, before he could even make it to the stairs. She waited only a few seconds for Clay to respond and when he didn’t, she continued. “The school called me today to tell me he didn’t show up. I told them he was sick and that I forgot to call in. So is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Clay replied. He had one foot on the bottom step, hoping the conversation wouldn’t be any more than this. 

“Where is he?” she asked. 

Clay’s jaw clenched. “Staying at Jessica’s tonight,” he replied. It hurt to think about, let alone admit. He’d gotten the text from Justin only a few minutes before. Not that he’d want to be stuck in a room with Justin, but staying at Jessica’s after everything Alex had said wasn’t exactly reassuring. 

He was glad he couldn’t really see his mom’s face… or that she couldn’t see his. It was surprising that she hadn’t asked him to come over to her yet, but now she was getting up and walking over to him. 

“Are you two fighting?” she asked in what sounded like a sympathetic tone. He wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. He wanted to believe she actually cared about this, but it would probably play right into her argument. 

He didn’t say anything at all, but apparently that was answer enough. 

“See Clay? This is exactly what I was worried about,” she said quickly in a hushed tone. As if speaking softly would help soften the blow of her words. 

Clay wanted to yell at her and to defend himself and Justin. He knew she was wrong, but today he just couldn’t see exactly why that was true, didn’t have it in him to fight her. He gave her a long look, trying to hold back tears that wanted to well up in his eyes. He was just so tired, and if this was what she wanted, they could go back to how things used to be, with their strained relationship full of secrets and silence.

Clay turned away and made his way up the stairs to his room. His mom sighed, watching him from the bottom of the stairs, and then retreated as well. 

Clay hid in his room the rest of the night. He had been trying to do some homework, which was going slow, when there was a knock on his closed bedroom door. It opened a crack. 

“Can I come in?” his dad asked. 

Clay sighed internally. “Yeah,” he said shortly. 

His dad entered and sat on Justin’s bed, clasping his hands together. “You’re mom told me what she said to you.”

Clay just waited. There was nothing to say until he knew where his dad stood in all this. He’d heard his dad come home and he’d heard the muffled voices slowly rising and falling again as they tried and failed to keep their argument quiet and civil. 

It was a long silence, edging on awkward, but his dad seemed to be thinking about his words carefully. “I’ve seen how happy you’ve been lately.”

That caught Clay’s attention. He’d expected his dad to make excuses for his mom and to tell him how they loved him but this was complicated. He hadn’t expected whatever this was. 

“You’ve been different these last few weeks, and if you’ve been seeing Justin the whole time, then I think that’s the obvious reason why,” his father added. Clay just stared at him, eyes wide, unable to say anything. “I haven’t seen you that happy since you were a young kid.” 

His dad wasn’t looking at him anymore, he was looking at his hands like he was guilty or ashamed. Clay had no idea what to do.

“I told your mom the same.”

“Thanks,” Clay was finally able to say. It came out quieter than he’d intended and his mouth felt dry. There was another long silence. Clay suddenly wanted someone to confide in about what was going on and had the urge to tell everything to his dad, but a big part of him fought against it. Opening up could mean getting hurt. He wouldn’t be able to handle further rejection, especially after everything his dad had just said. And yet, he wanted so badly to be able to trust him. “We’re sort of in a fight.”

His dad just nodded. So his mom had told him that much apparently, probably as part of her argument. “Relationships are like that,” his dad said with a small smile that Clay couldn’t help but return. “You can tell me about it if you want. And if you don’t, I know you’ll work it out.”

Clay swallowed around the lump forming in his throat. Clay nodded to show he was grateful, but he didn’t really want to get into the details. “Thanks,” Clay managed. Speaking was becoming even more difficult. 

His dad seemed satisfied with ending the conversation there, standing and heading for the door. “I’ll bring you up some dinner,” he added before leaving the room. 

Clay didn’t like the idea of his parents fighting, but he couldn’t believe the relief he felt knowing his dad was on his side just this once. In the past it had always felt like Clay against his parents, like they always needed to be this united front. Clay suddenly felt exhausted, as though he’d been struggling against a huge weight and now that it was lifted from his shoulders, he could finally relax. His dad came back with a plate of food a little later, and shortly after that, the plate was empty and Clay was passed out on his bed, fully dressed for the second night in a row. 

~*~*~

Clay woke up startled and his brain assumed he was late. It was silent and therefore his alarm had not woken him up, so he immediately assumed he was late. He jumped up to check his phone, and when he saw the time he realized he’d actually woken up before his alarm. Then he noticed his room was darker than usual, as the sun had only recently started to rise apparently. 

He sat back onto his bed, relaxing and waiting for his heart rate to slow. He felt awake, and not just from the adrenaline shock of thinking you’ve slept in, but actually well-rested. He ended up going on his computer for a bit, then when he stomach growled, he went to the kitchen to get food, happy his mom wasn’t already awake and downstairs. After eating, he got a text around the time he’d normally be waking up. 

“Can we meet before school?” It was from Alex. 

Clay tensed a little, the relief from the night before already fading. Back to school and back to reality, which he didn’t particularly feel like dealing with. He especially didn’t feel like talking to Alex, who was sort of emotionally all over the place. 

Clay texted back anyway, telling him to meet at Monet’s. He was at least glad for the excuse to leave the house early, which meant a better chance of successfully avoiding his mom. 

Clay showered, taking more time than he was usually afforded in the mornings. He dug through piles of clothes in his room to find something to wear, trying not to think about the sick feeling he got when he picked up one of Justin’s t-shirts or boxers or other random pieces of clothing that they never bothered keeping separate. 

He got to Monet’s early, and grabbed coffee as he waited for Alex. It always a little strange to be here alone, left with his thoughts about everything that had happened to he and his friends here. He pictured Hannah with friends, and Hannah alone, and then he and Justin sitting here with various people these past few months, then asking Justin if he wanted to be adopted at the table by the window, then Justin on the couch begging him to go to the dance.

Luckily, Alex was on time and therefore Clay’s traitorous thoughts couldn’t continue down the path of everything that’s happened since then. 

Alex waved at Clay, but went to the counter to get a coffee before joining him at the table. Alex seemed uncomfortable, looking over his shoulders and scoping out who was in the small café. It was fairly empty, as most people were taking their coffees to go. As Alex got closer, Clay noticed was shaking a little and wondered if coffee was really the best idea, but decided not to say as much.

“Hey,” Clay said, pressing his lips together. He wasn’t looking forward to this conversation, but at least Alex didn’t seem as hysterical as before.

“Hey,” Alex said as he finally sat down. “Thanks for meeting me.”

“Sure,” Clay replied. He felt like he was waiting for a bomb to drop and his knee started bouncing under the table.

“Jess and I broke up last night,” Alex began with absolutely no segue. 

“Oh,” Clay said. Shit, that wasn’t good. If Jess and Justin hadn’t really slept together, then why would she and Alex have still broken up? “Sorry,” he remembered to add belatedly.

Alex shrugged. “I’m sorry. About yesterday.”

“Oh?” Clay was confused, not able to keep track of this conversation at all. 

“I owe you an explanation,” Alex said. Clay could only hope that would make everything clear at least, so he could figure out how he should be feeling. But Alex had paused and Clay wasn’t sure what exactly he was waiting for.

“Jess and I…” he finally began. He wasn’t looking Clay in the eyes, but down at his coffee instead. “We’ve been fighting a lot lately. And it all sort of blew up the other day when she accused me of having feelings for Zach.”

“What?” Clay interrupted, because he couldn’t help it.

“Yeah, I know,” Alex scoffed, half-heartedly. “Anyway, she was really upset and I guess ran into Justin at school and they hung out that night. The next morning I went to try and find her and try and make up somehow. Her dad let me go up to her room, but then Justin was in bed with her. I knew it wasn’t anything really. They were both in their clothes and on top of the covers and stuff. I guess I just wanted something to be mad at.”

Clay was nodding, even though he wasn’t sure he quite understood.

“So they weren’t cheating,” Clay said for confirmation. He hated that this didn’t make him feel any better about what had happened. He had been upset with Justin even before Alex had come to tell him about Jess. Then Clay thought of something else. “But if the Zach thing isn’t true either, then why’d you guys break up?”

Alex looked up at him then, an eyebrow raised. He didn’t have to say anything.

“Oh,” Clay said. He felt unreasonably awkward about this. “Well, thanks for telling me all this. And I hope you, uh, work things out.”

“So you forgive Justin?” Alex asked. Clay wasn’t sure why he cared exactly, as he never seemed to be a fan of Justin.

Clay just shrugged. “I don’t know if I ever really believed he had slept with Jess. Maybe I just wanted another reason to be mad too.”

Another reason. Because he did have some already. Justin had ran away when things were getting tough, just like he always did. He left Clay worried sick about him and ignored him. Their problems wouldn’t be so easily fixed. Clay finished the last of his coffee, and got up to leave. He made up an excuse to give to Alex as he really didn’t want to feel obligated to walk to school with him. He needed more time to think and he doubted Justin would risk skipping another day of class.

The morning passed without incident, until Clay was heading to his locker right before lunch. Justin was there leaning against it, waiting for him. Clay slowed as he rounded the hall corner and saw this, but approached anyway. 

Justin stood up straight as soon as he spotted Clay. “Hey,” he said quickly, eyes wide and searching Clay’s face. It was hard for Clay not to reach out and hug Justin, but at the same time, he kind of wanted to punch him. 

“Hey,” he finally replied. 

“Can we go and talk?” Justin asked right away. 

Clay wanted to give some sarcastic or passive aggressive answer, and had to physically bit his tongue to stop from doing so. He nodded and turned to head for the nearest exit to get outside. 

Clay continued walking, off school property and down the street, and Justin fell in step beside him. He didn’t know where he was going, but he didn’t want to stop. Justin must have realized this and decided to start. 

“Alex talked to you, right?” Justin asked first. 

“Yeah,” Clay replied. 

“So you know nothing happened with Jess and I?” Justin asked. Clearly he was a little confused as to why Clay was being so cold.

“Yeah,” Clay said again. Something made Justin finally understand it wasn’t about Jess at all.

“Okay,” he said as he started to think about what to say. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I was. My phone died and I didn’t notice until the morning.”

“You ignored me before that. And after. And got Jess to lie to me.”

Justin nodded. “I’m sorry for that too.”

Clay suddenly stopped. “Justin! I thought you were dead!” He paused, fighting to keep his emotions in check. “I couldn’t stop picturing your body in a ditch somewhere. And don’t tell me I’m being dramatic… after everything with Bryce and Monty and Seth.”

Justin was looking like a kicked puppy and it wasn’t helping Clay fight the tears burning behind his eyes. 

“Clay, I’m so sorry. I never wanted…” Justin reached out a hand to try and take Clay’s. Clay pulled his away. 

“Just tell me why,” Clay said. Then softer he added, “I just don’t understand why.”

“Your parents. The talk you told me about. How they didn’t want me there. I thought they were going to force you to break up with me or something.”

Clay laughed bitterly, but didn’t offer an explanation so Justin continued. 

“And then you were texting me ‘we need to talk’ and I just thought for sure that’s what was going to happen. And I couldn’t deal with that. I didn’t want us to be over.”

“So you ran away. Like you always do,” Clay finished for him. He saw Justin flinch at the accusation but he didn’t deny it. “The worst part is you were right.”

Justin suddenly looked scared, eyebrows knitting together in concern. He was no doubt thinking Clay had gone through all this just to say they couldn’t be together anymore.

“Not all of it,” he said, watching Justin carefully for his reaction. “My parents did tell me it would be better for us not to be together.”

“Fuck,” Justin said, running a hand through his hair. 

“But did you really think I would just listen to them? I fought for you Justin. And then I needed you, and you weren’t there.” Clay’s voice had risen again and he couldn’t force it back down. “I get that you were scared. But how can I trust you’re not just going to leave again, whenever it gets hard?”

Justin didn’t have an answer to that. He looked guiltily down at his feet. Clay hated yelling at Justin. All he wanted to do was to protect him, but sometimes he had to protect himself too. He was sick of feeling hurt and abandoned. 

“I’m sorry I made you deal with that alone,” Justin finally said. Clay shut his eyes, the words actually making him feel a little better. But he didn’t want to let go of his anger, he couldn’t. 

“Thanks,” Clay said. “I just need more time.” He turned and headed back to school, leaving Justin standing on the sidewalk looking dejected. 

Clay bought lunch in the cafeteria and ate quickly, so he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. He went to the library to kill time for the rest of the lunch period. 

After his next class, he ran into Jess in the hall. 

“Hey,” she said, watching his face to see where they stood. 

He gave her a small smile to tell her he wasn’t angry with her. “Hey. Sorry about you and Alex.”

“Yeah… thanks,” she replied. He couldn’t figure out by her tone quite how she was feeling. It didn’t sound quite heartbroken, but maybe just a little sad. “So are you and Justin okay?” she asked. 

“Not quite,” Clay replied honestly.

“But you know nothing –“ she started to say quickly. 

“Yeah, I know,” Clay cut her off. “It’s more than that.”

Jess nodded, thinking about something. “I’m taking that Intro to Psychology course.”

“Okay,” Clay said confused. 

“Last week, we learned how humans follow basic animal survival instincts.”

“Fight, flight, freeze?” Clay guessed. He could see now where this was going. 

“Yeah, exactly. When we’re in a situation where we perceive danger, whatever our instinctual reaction is can be boiled down to one of those three things.”

Clay just nodded, considering this. It was fairly obvious what Justin’s reaction was. Then he thought about why that might be and considered Justin’s home life growing up. Maybe running away was always the safest option, so it became his automatic response. Clay was suddenly feeling guilty. 

“And how are you supposed to change that automatic reaction?” Clay asked. 

Jess smiled a little. “We haven’t gotten that far yet.” Then after taking a minute, she added, “I think it’ll take some work from him. But also some help from you.”

“Uh, thanks,” was all Clay could say to the insightful response. “See ya,” he waved as he split off down a separate hallway to get to his class. 

Survival instincts, that’s all it was. Maybe there was a way he could show Justin that there was no danger when it came to Clay. That even when things were difficult, Clay was the constant he could depend on, instead of the danger to run from. 

He thought about his own instinctual reactions. What group was he in? Definitely fight. And he wasn’t sure whether to be proud of that, or whether that just meant he needed to keep his anger and impulsiveness in better check. 

He pulled out his phone to text Justin. _Come home with me after school?_

He still didn’t know how exactly to move forward, but he was feeling better about letting Justin work on that with him. And he definitely didn’t want Justin spending another night away. 

_Yes please_ was the quick response from Justin. And Clay had to smile a little despite himself. He pictured Justin’s face lighting up and looking far too adorable than anyone ever had the right too. 

Another text came in. _What about your parents?_

Clay didn’t want to have this conversation over text, but wanted to give Justin some ease of mind. _Dad’s on our side now. We’ll deal with it together._

He hit send, before deciding he wanted to say more. _I’m not letting you go._

He sent it quick before he could change his mind. His cheeks were burning from embarrassment, even though no one around him could possibly know how completely sappy and in love he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is already in progress and I promise to update MUCH MUCH sooner than the last time. I'm so excited to be writing again, my life has been crazy hectic these last few months! Thank you for sticking around!!


	8. So it goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justin and Clay both try to heal from the drama of the week. Justin has an idea to get Clay to relax.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: I do not condone people under 18 using marijuana. Clay’s logic is not my logic on the subject.

Clay felt nervous throughout the rest of the afternoon. He hoped he was making the right decision by forgiving Justin. He missed him so much, it was starting to physically hurt, but he was also scared that Justin would never get better. That he would just continue to run away at any sign of danger, and maybe eventually leave town again, leaving Clay worried sick and broken. 

But he also wanted Justin to trust him to stop any of that from happening, and to do that, Clay had to try trusting Justin first and he had to hope that would be a start. 

They met up after school, both of them acting a little too awkward, and Clay thought maybe Justin was shaking just as much as he was. 

“What are we going to say to your mom?” Justin asked. Clay knew it was a valid question, but really didn’t want to be thinking about that right now. 

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But we’ll figure it out together.” Then Clay slipped his hand into Justin’s and watched as Justin’s face lit up. “I don’t want to go home yet,” Clay added.

“Me neither,” Justin said quickly, sounding a little relieved. 

“Monet’s?” Clay asked.

Justin nodded quickly in reply and then they walked slowly, hand in hand, to Clay’s car. 

By the time they were sitting with their mugs at a small table in the busy café, some of the nerves had subsided. This felt good and as close to normal as they could probably get right now. 

“So when Alex talked to you, did he tell you…” Justin started. 

“Yeah,” Clay said with a small huff of laughter. “I was not expecting that. Do you think Zach…?” Clay wasn’t sure how to finish the question. There were a lot of possibilities there. 

“Who knows,” Justin said, shaking his head. “I don’t think I really knew Zach as well as I thought I did.” 

Clay just nodded at that. A lot of things came out during the trial. Secrets that gave them all a new perspective on everyone they knew. 

“Sort of crazy though, right?” Justin added. There was a small, cautious smile on his lips. 

Clay couldn’t help bit laugh a little at that. “Yeah. I had no idea what to say to Alex.”

Justin’s smile had grown a little more. “I hope no one expects us to be experts on the subject.”

“Yeah, at least Alex and Zach were friends first,” Clay said. Justin looked confused. “It seems like it’d be easier that way,” Clay tried to explain. “Instead of whatever the hell we did.”

Justin nodded in understanding, sipping his drink when he had nothing more to add. Clay couldn’t help but think of what Jess had said, about survival instincts and what Clay could try and do to help. 

“You know,” Clay started awkwardly, breaking the silence. “Humans have the same basic instincts as animals.”

Before Clay could continue, Justin was rolling his eyes, along with his whole head, dramatically. “Jessica talked to you,” he said flatly. It wasn’t a question. 

Clay gave him a lopsided smile. “Yeah,” he admitted. Of course Jess would have told Justin as well, probably assuming neither of them would actually have the guts to bring it up, or explain properly maybe. 

Justin was looking at him with an eyebrow raised. 

“Come on, it’s not totally ridiculous. It’s psychology,” Clay said. 

Justin sighed. “I know, I know. It made sense too, but… that doesn’t mean I know how to fix it.”

“I know,” Clay said quickly. He reached his hand across the small table, to intertwine his fingers with Justin’s. “You don’t have to figure it out alone though. And I want to help… help you see that I’m safe.” He tried to sound as serious as he could as he stared at Justin. Justin was looking up at him from beneath his eyelashes in that way he always did when he didn’t feel worthy of the affection he was receiving. 

Clay thought he maybe knew what Justin was thinking in that moment. That some voice in Justin’s head was telling him he didn’t deserve this and that he was worthless and Clay wished he could physically punch that voice without hurting Justin. 

Justin didn’t say anything right away, but instead raised their twined hands and kissed Clay’s knuckles.

Clay couldn’t help but look around and make sure that no one was staring at them as the heat in his cheeks rose. 

“I don’t,” Justin finally started. He spoke so quietly Clay had to lean in a little so he wouldn’t miss the next part. “I don’t ever want to run from you. I’m sorry.”

“Good,” was all Clay replied, with a teasing smile. “So is it okay if I tell you what happened with my parents?”

Justin nodded quickly, and then Clay told him about everything has mom had said and done. He felt a bit like he had to walk on eggshells, hoping not to scare Justin away too much. Then he told Justin in great detail about how supportive his dad had been and that he was sure he would talk to his mom. 

“No matter what, they’re not going to kick you out. I promise, it’ll never come to that, okay?” He waited for Justin to nod in acknowledgement, which he did solemnly. “It might be super fucking awkward for a while, but we’ll deal with it, okay?” Justin nodded with a smile this time. 

With that, Clay drove them home. They sat in the car for a while, both gathering their composure. Clay was hardening himself, readying for a fight, whereas Justin was just trying to relax, trying not to freak out before even getting in the door. 

When they got inside, both of Clay’s parents were in the kitchen. His dad was at the table reading something and his mom was busy by the stove. They both looked toward the door when it opened and the boys walked through. 

“Oh, Justin!” his mom said, wiping her hands on a towel and quickly making her way over to them. “I’m glad you’re okay.” She placed her hands on Justin’s shoulders. 

“I’m sorry for worrying you,” Justin said. 

“It’s fine,” she said uncomfortably. Clearing her throat, she added, “I’m sorry.” Then she looked at Clay and moved one hand to his shoulder. “I’m sorry to both of you. I haven’t been very fair.”

It sounded a little scripted, but Clay wasn’t going to say anything about it. He looked at his dad in the background, who was watching carefully. He would take the olive branch being offered. 

“Thanks,” he said simply. 

“You boys hungry?” his dad said, getting up from the table to check on whatever was in the pot. Clay’s mom took this as her cue to go back to the kitchen and set the table.

Justin looked at Clay for direction. Clay just shrugged in response. 

“Yeah, starving,” Justin said for them. 

“Ready in 5,” his dad called from over his shoulder. 

Justin and Clay went upstairs to put their bags away and get ready for dinner. Justin hesitated as he swung the door open. Clay watched him take a deep breath as he entered the room, then Clay followed him in. He wondered, as he often did lately, what was going through Justin’s mind. 

“Bit of a mess,” Justin said, looking around. 

Clay barked out a laugh. “Half of this is yours, you know. Besides, I figure you’ll need a way to start making it up to me.”

Justin raised an eyebrow mischievously. “I had a different way in mind,” he said, closing the short distance between them. Clay froze, wondering if he was ready for this. He’d gone through the wringer in the past week, barely managing to keep his emotions in check most of the time. 

Still, he let Justin lean in and kiss him. It was short and sweet, and Clay was actually glad for it. He wanted more, but there was still a part of him feeling protective, defensive. When Justin pulled away, Clay couldn’t help but lean out after him and steal another quick kiss. 

Justin looked slightly surprised, but pleased. Clay just shrugged it off and headed back downstairs, from where the delicious smell of dinner was wafting up. 

Dinner was quite different from what Clay was used to. He’d never seen his mom look so sheepish and it was bordering on creepy. They danced around the elephant in the room for a while, making small talk about school and TV shows. Clay’s dad dominated most of the conversation, which was probably the most unusual part. 

“So, we’ve been thinking,” his dad said. The tone in his voice had changed, and with it, the atmosphere in the whole room. Clay was pretty sure he and Justin were both holding their breaths, waiting for what his dad was going to say. “We’re going to finally get the basement finished,” his dad finally said with a smile. 

“Oh,” Clay breathed out. “Cool.” Had he only imagined the heaviness in his dad’s words? He wasn’t quite sure what it had to do with anything. Their basement had been unfinished since they’d bought the house, wall-to-wall concrete and mostly used for storage. 

“We’ll hire some people who can get it done fairly quickly. We’re thinking a rec room and a spare bedroom.” Clay regained interest at that, making quick eye contact with his father. His dad gave him a meaningful look, and then moved on with the conversation. He told them most of the work would get done while they were out at school, but that there might have to be work done into the evenings sometimes. 

Clay and Justin just nodded along. Clay felt that this was something good, but he still wasn’t sure what exactly the meaning was behind it. He hoped it wasn’t meant for Justin. Clay didn’t think that after everything, he would suggest that they have to spend their nights in separate rooms, but he couldn’t really rule it out and his stomach tightened at the thought. Clay looked over at his mom every once in a while, who was offering small smiles where she could, nodding in agreement with his dad. It did nothing to ease his mind. 

After dinner, Clay’s dad asked him to help with the dishes. His mom had some work to do on her computer, and Justin was excused to go do homework after helping to clear the table. He grabbed Clay’s hand to give it a squeeze before leaving the kitchen. 

It was quiet as they cleaned until they’d settled into an efficient rhythm of washing and drying. Clay waited for his dad to speak first, and eventually he did. 

“I was thinking the downstairs bedroom could be a good idea for when one of you boys need some space.” He spoke calmly, but Clay’s heart rate quickened anyway. “It can also be a good space for you to hang out together.”

Clay stopped what he was doing. That was what he was hoping for, but hadn’t really let himself wish for. “Really?” he asked, letting the hope and excitement and wariness seep into his voice. 

His dad looked over at him and smiled, seemingly happy with Clay’s response. “Yes.”

Clay looked around to check his mom wasn’t in earshot, then with a lowered voice asked, “And mom’s okay with this?”

His dad nodded even though he seemed like he was considering the question a little. “It’s just going to take her some time to get used to. But like I said, we both just want you boys to be happy. Your mom just needed some help to see what that meant.”

A warm, wet tear fell down Clay’s cheek, and he turned away to hide it from his dad. He wiped his cheek with his shoulder and cleared is throat. 

“Okay,” was all he said. He knew his dad would understand how much this meant to him, and how much it would mean to Justin. His mom might still act weird for a while, but at least now Clay felt like there was a chance things could slowly get back to normal or a new kind of normal. 

Once the dishes were done, Clay gave his dad a small smile before leaving to join Justin upstairs. 

He was excited to relay the story to Justin, whose eyes lit up and mouth fell open. Justin got up from his homework to hug Clay, and Clay relished the familiar feeling of his hands on Justin’s lower back and his forehead in the crook of Justin’s neck. Clay loved seeing Justin happy, but as they let go, something uncomfortable hung in the air between them. Justin seemed like he wanted to kiss Clay, but Clay wasn’t sure how far he wanted things to go right now. 

His wounds, though seemingly healed, still felt fresh, because they’d been deep. He still felt that he needed some time to catch his breath, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be apart from Justin. He took a step back and watched Justin’s shoulders sag a little. 

“I have a ton of homework tonight. How about you?” Clay asked as he started taking out his books and notes from his backpack. 

“Yeah, me too,” Justin said, turning back to his own work. 

Clay was happy that the discomfort melted away, and instead they eased into old habits. As they worked, one of them would make a comment about a teacher or something stupid from one of their classes and each time they laughed, the air in the room felt lighter.

Justin apparently took Clay’s actions earlier as an unspoken request for them to sleep in separate beds. Clay felt a little guilty and wished he could just forget the past couple of days, but he couldn’t quite yet. Ultimately, he was grateful that Justin didn’t make a big deal out of it, or seem too upset. Clay was in bed just before Justin, which meant he had to turn off the light, and which also allowed Justin to cross the room and give Clay a quick kiss. 

They stared at each other across the room, from each of their small beds, through the darkness, and Clay felt something he could only think was his heart healing. 

~*~*~

Friday had finally arrived and Clay was grateful. The week had been long and brutal and he was excited to just hang out with Justin. They’d talked about going to the mall or seeing a movie. Neither of them suggested seeing Jess, and he figured neither of them knew what to say to her right now. Clay didn’t know what would happen to their new friend group. They’d all just been thrown together with the recent events, and while he didn’t want it all to fall apart, he wouldn’t exactly be surprised if it did. Jess would always be their friend, but they’d have to see where the pieces would fall with Zach and Alex. 

They decided to go straight downtown to the main street after school. Clay parked the car and they walked for a while, bumping shoulders and making each other laugh. They got food from a small shop neither of them had been to before, the sandwiches too big for either of them to finish. They ended up seeing a movie, some action comedy with a plot Clay could barely follow. But it was okay because Justin was there, holding his hand. And the armrest between the seats lifted up, allowing Clay to press into Justin’s side.

When they got out of the theatre, it was dark, but it wasn’t all that late yet. Still, they drove home in a comforting silence, Justin’s hand on Clay’s leg. When he parked in the driveway, Clay stayed still, gripping the steering wheel with his hands.

“What’s wrong?” Justin asked, concerned. 

“What? Nothing,” Clay said, letting go of the wheel finally. 

“Clay, you’ve been tense the whole way home,” Justin pointed out. 

“No I haven’t,” Clay said defensively. Then he had to force his shoulders to relax, which actually kind of hurt to do, and realized he may have been holding some tension there. 

Justin clearly noticed this but decided not to say anything about it. 

“It’s nothing,” Clay lied. 

Justin considered this for a moment, then said, “I want you to be able to talk to me.”

Clay turned to look at Justin, a little confused.

“I don’t want you to be afraid that something you say will make me run away. I’m not going to do that anymore. I won’t run from you,” Justin said. 

Clay didn’t know what to say. He stared at Justin, searched his eyes for fear or doubt, but found none. Clay took a breath, feeling his chest expand, feeling like he hadn’t been breathing properly for days. 

“Let’s go for a walk,” Justin said, hopping out of the car before Clay could even protest. Clay wondered why Justin took his backpack from the backseat, but then he was already walking down the driveway to the street. “Come on, I’m taking you somewhere.”

“It’s already dark. Where are we gonna go?” Clay tried to sound like he disapproved, but he was already following Justin out onto the street. 

Justin turned around to make sure Clay was following him, and stopped to wait for him to catch up. When he did, Justin grabbed his hand and squeezed tightly, and Clay squeezed back. Justin swung their hands a little as they continued to walk, at a more relaxed pace now. They passed the last house on the street and were now on a long stretch of road with only trees on either side. Justin let go of Clay’s hand and sat on the curb, looking up at Clay with a mischievous grin. 

“I thought we were going somewhere. This is nowhere,” Clay said, looking around. 

Justin just stared at him until Clay had to roll his eyes and sit down next to him. Justin then took his backpack off, swung it around to his feet, and began to dig inside. Clay just watched suspiciously, when Justin produced a small plastic baggy. 

“What the fuck, Justin?” he said, suddenly very serious. 

“Calm down, Clay. It’s just weed,” Justin said, half-laughing. He apparently didn’t see the very clear issue here. 

“Said the drug addict,” Clay pointed out. 

“Weed isn’t addictive,” Justin said. Then cutting Clay off before he could even start he added, “And it’s not a gateway drug.”

Clay only stared at him with a hard look, as if that would suddenly get Justin to see how idiotic this argument was. 

Justin rolled his eyes. “My old friends and I all did it. And I’m the only one who did any harder drugs. And that’s because there were a lot of… extenuating circumstances,” Justin said, without the same enthusiasm as before. Clay knew he shouldn’t feel guilty that Justin was now looking sad and almost definitely thinking about his mom and meth Seth and Bryce and everything else that came with that, but he couldn’t help it. He reached out a hand to squeeze Justin’s knee.

“Besides,” Justin said. “This is mostly for you. It’ll help you relax. I have a high tolerance, it’ll barely do anything to me.”

“And what would the people at your NA meeting say?” Clay said, ignoring Justin’s small smile. 

“Most of them smoke cigarettes, and nicotine is way more addictive, so who’s really the bigger addict in that situation?”

Clay rolled his eyes again. How did this argument just keep going in circles?

“You did harder drugs with Hannah and those other guys, but you won’t smoke some weed with me?” Justin asked. 

Clay didn’t answer right away, thinking about this. What was he so opposed to, anyway? Justin was right, most kids at their school smoked weed and they weren’t all addicts or stoners or losers. Justin had apparently taken Clay’s silence as a tentative OK sign, and was slowly opening the bag, putting a hand inside, and pulling out a joint all while staring at Clay, waiting for him to tell him to stop. 

Clay just sighed as he gave in. “This is peer pressure,” Clay said, half-heartedly. 

Justin smiled a little, then leaned in, wrapping a hand around the back of Clay’s head and bringing their lips together. Justin tilted his head to the side and slid his tongue into Clay’s mouth. Clay couldn’t help the noise that he let slip, half moan, half sigh. He’d missed this so bad. They hadn’t kissed like that since everything had gotten sorted out between them. Clay had wanted to keep some distance with Justin, maybe to protect himself a little, but now all he wanted was to be close. 

“Trust me, that’s gonna feel even better when you’re high,” Justin said. He wagged the joint in his fingers. 

“Go on, then,” Clay said. 

Justin put it to his lips, lighting it and sucking in at the same time. Clay couldn’t help but watch as Justin’s cheeks hollowed and his eyes shut softly. He breathed out a cloud of smoke and passed the joint to Clay. The smell was recognizable and terrible. He felt awkward as he held it between his thumb and forefinger and tried to copy Justin’s method. But when the smoke hit his lungs as he drew a breath in, he started to cough uncontrollably. His throat burned. 

Justin started to rub circles on his back. “It’s okay, that means you did it right.”

Justin took another long hit and as he held the smoke in his mouth, he nodded his head at Clay, signaling him to come closer. Justin brought their mouths together again and Clay opened wide as Justin did the same and softly breathed the smoke into Clay’s mouth. 

They continued smoking and kissing until they’d finished the joint. Justin had made sure he took the majority, so as not to overwhelm Clay for his first time. By the time they were done it all, Clay could definitely feel it. 

There was an unmistakable buzz under his skin and a lightness to his body. He bit his lip, feeling strange. He put his hands out in front of him, rotating them in the air, and heard Justin laughing from beside him. Clay suddenly tipped backwards, landing on the grass behind him, legs still hanging over the curb, then started to laugh. It felt uncontrollable and impossible to stop. He finally did when Justin joined him in lying on his back on the ground, and he clasped their hands together. He moved further back from the road though, and awkwardly tugged at Clay to move up with him. 

For a while, and Clay couldn’t tell if it was minutes or hours, they just lay there, staring at the darkening sky as the stars started to show through. Clay felt every breath he took like he never had before. He felt the oxygen expand his lungs and chest, and let his stomach rise with the breath too. Then he exhaled slowly, feeling everything fall back into place, and feeling like he was sinking into the earth. 

“Woah,” he said, unsure if he had actually meant to speak. 

“You okay?” Justin asked, turning his head to look at Clay. Their hands were still twined together and Clay had the thought that Justin was holding on tight, as if he was afraid Clay would float up and away if he let go. Clay was afraid that might happen too, so he made his own grip tighten. 

“Yeah,” Clay answered. “I’m good. It’s all good.” Talking felt weird. It was like his thoughts were all there in his head, and sounded perfectly fine and understandable. But when he tried to talk, things just didn’t come out right. They came out slow, and his voice sounded different to his ears, and it’s like his mouth couldn’t keep up with the speed of his brain. 

Justin laughed and Clay didn’t know why. But it sounded melodic and beautiful. It felt like there was a blurry wall all around Clay that made everything look odd and sound faraway, but Justin’s laugh broke through it, sounding perfectly crystal clear. 

Clay felt weird, but he did feel good. He was aware of his body, and how relaxed it felt. He’d never felt so relaxed in his life. It felt like each blade of grass his hand touched, was the first he ever felt. He could feel the texture of Justin’s hand like he never had before. Everything felt new but familiar somehow. Like he’d always known it was there but just didn’t have the time to notice for too long now.  
He sat up partially, feeling suddenly heavy rather than light and weightless. He turned to Justin and flopped back down on top of him. 

Justin laughed, and Clay relished the feeling of his ear pressed to Justin’s chest. He felt every vibration and heard the sound echo through his chest as well as dance in the air around him. Again, they lay there for a while, but Justin was filling the silence, telling Clay how cute and funny and smart he was. Clay had a feeling he wouldn’t remember this tomorrow and that Justin knew that, and it was the only reason why he was okay with saying all of it. But right now Clay was okay with that, because he could hear it right now. 

He was playing with the bottom hem of Justin’s shirt, but now slid his hand underneath to rest on Justin’s bare hip. The skin there was warm and soft and Clay couldn’t help but run his hand up and down Justin’s side, which earned more laughs from Justin. Justin brought a hand up to Clay’s chin, then helped Clay shimmy up his body until their lips could meet. Clay felt like they were kissing both too slow and too fast. He relinquished himself to Justin, being that he was in the more clear mindset, letting him set the pace and Clay just went along with it.

Justin had been right about how amazing it felt, but it also felt like there was too much happening at once, too much stimulation, and his brain couldn’t focus on or appreciate all of it. He couldn’t stop from grinding his body a little against Justin’s and he wasn’t sure which one of them moaned at the small movement. He suddenly felt a wave of need and want so deeply he couldn’t help but grind their hips together and start to kiss and bite and lick Justin’s neck and every bare inch of skin he could find. 

“Stop,” Justin whispered into Clay’s hair, so quiet it barely registered. 

“I want you to f-” Clay started, but he couldn’t finish that sentence without blushing. The look Justin gave him told him he might have known where he was going. “I want to have sex like this. Feeling like this.”

“We can. Later. Not now though,” Justin said, but the words weren’t entirely making sense. Justin was kissing Clay, but also there was more space between them now. He was no longer on top of Justin, but beside, and now that Justin had the room, he was getting up onto his feet. 

Clay looked at him confused, and also with a bigger pout than he would have done sober.

“Come on,” Justin said, laughing slightly and reaching for Clay’s hands to help him up. 

“Not home,” Clay said, concerned, once he was standing. He still had enough sensibility to know that trying to sneak past his parents right now would be a bad idea. 

“No,” Justin agreed. Clay apparently didn’t look convinced because Justin came closer and kissed him deeply. One hand combing through Clay’s short hair at the back of his head, and the other along his jawline. 

It was enough for Clay to let Justin lead him by the hand, walking just a little further down the road and then veering off into the trees. Clay wanted to ask where they were going, but before he could even bother, Justin pulled him in so their bodies were flush. Then he walked Clay backwards as he kissed his neck and cheeks and lips, until Clay felt a tree behind him.  
Justin pressed their hips together briefly. It sent a jolt up Clay’s spine and he shivered. 

“Are you cold?” Justin whispered, breath tickling Clay’s ear. 

“No,” he replied quickly. Then he hooked a finger through a belt loop on either side of Justin’s pants and pulled his hips in again. They were both hard and this time, Clay moaned a little. 

He was almost sober enough to be embarrassed about it, but apparently he didn’t need to be. 

“Fuck,” Justin said softly, almost stuttering. He grinded their hips together in a harder, more purposeful motion. 

There was a thought at the back of Clay’s mind that they probably shouldn’t be doing this. Not here or now or something like that. He couldn’t quite think of why, and the thought was too far away, too easy to push back further, and let go. 

The next couple of minutes was a blur to Clay. Had he pushed Justin’s boxers down first? The cool night air was a little unpleasant, but it didn’t stop them. Skin on skin, sliding together in Justin’s hand. Clay’s hands wrapped around Justin’s neck, his hips, his back. 

Clay was light-headed afterward. Justin used his own shirt to clean them up, then stole Clay’s sweater to wear instead. 

“I need to stop ruining my shirts like this,” Justin said. Clay laughed in what could definitely be defined as a giggle. He was suddenly tired, his bones feeling heavy. 

“Bed,” was all he could manage to say.

~*~

Justin woke up feeling good, which was still an unusual feeling for him. He stretched in bed, opening his eyes a little wider. The sun was bright and streaming through the windows. He turned his head to see Clay in the bed across the room, basically dead to the world. 

He smiled a little at the memory of the night before. Walking home with Clay, hand-in-hand, Clay’s head resting awkwardly on Justin’s shoulder every once in a while. They’d been lucky the parents had already gone to bed, or had at least been reading in the bedroom or something. Clay may have been able to pass off his behaviour as tiredness, but it was still easier not to deal with it at all. 

As soon as Clay’s head hit the pillow, he’d fallen asleep. Justin didn’t think it was necessarily “right” to get Clay high, but it was nice to see Clay actually relax for once. It was nice to hear him laugh so carelessly and not have the weight of the world around him on his shoulders. 

It had been nice for Justin too actually. He hadn’t smoked weed in a while and though his tolerance was still relatively high, it wasn’t what it used to be. He’d felt a little light and fuzzy and it was easy to let go and just lay on the ground with Clay, looking at the stars, and not worrying about anything at all. 

Thinking about it though, made Justin realize he felt a little grimey and was probably in desperate need of a shower. As he left the bathroom, he ran into Mrs. Jensen – Lainie – in the hallway. It was times like these, he was glad he always brought his change of clothes into the bathroom with him.

“Is Clay awake?” she asked after they’d both apologized for the run-in.

“No,” he said. “Figured he deserves to sleep in as late as he can.”

She nodded. “You boys were home late last night.” She offered a small smile and Justin didn’t know if she was waiting for some sort of explanation or not. 

“Yeah, sorry,” he said anyway. “It was a long movie, and we went for a walk afterward.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s good. I’m glad things are… good.”

Justin smiled back, not knowing what to say. 

“Matt’s going to make pancakes this morning,” she said cheerily. “Get Clay up by 11 at the latest.”

Justin nodded, “Okay.”

Lainie stood there a moment longer, looking conflicted. Then she wrapped her arms around Justin in a hug. A moment later, and before Justin could even react, she pulled away, giving him another small smile, before she headed downstairs. 

Justin was a little stunned, but eventually made his way back to the bedroom. Clay hadn’t moved an inch, and Justin watched his chest rise and fall ever so slightly. He laid back down on his bed and began to read some comics, just to pass the time. 

Before Justin had promised to wake him, Clay started to stir. He groaned and turned in the bed, rubbing his face into his pillow. When he opened his eyes and found Justin across the room, Justin couldn’t hide the laugh that rose up inside him. Clay’s hair looked ridiculous, and it made no sense that his short hair could be so unruly. Clay immediately pouted and his eyes turned to slits as he glared at Justin.

“How ya feeling?” Justin said, putting down the comic. He got up and crossed the room, sitting on the edge of Clay’s bed. 

“Not great,” Clay said. His voice was gravelly and Justin bit his lip. There was something a little sexy about it. “And my mouth tastes like a garbage can.”

Justin couldn’t help but let out another laugh. “Yeah, sorry. Unfortunate side effect.”

“You’re a bad influence,” Clay said. 

“I think we already knew that,” Justin replied. Then he leaned down to place a small kiss on Clay’s mouth. Then he exaggerated a grimace. “You’re right, your mouth tastes like garbage.”

“If my body wasn’t so exhausted, I would totally be attacking you right now.”

“Oh, I believe it,” Justin said, grinning. Clay reached out a first in a very weak attempt to punch Justin’s arm and Justin let it happen. Then his hand dropped to the bed and found Justin’s and Clay squeezed. 

“Last night was… interesting,” Clay said. “It was kind of nice.”

Justin didn’t say anything. He had been a little worried Clay would be mad at him this morning. He just smiled at squeezed Clay’s hand back. 

“Ugh,” Clay said, screwing up his face. “I really need to go brush my teeth.”

“And shower while you’re at.” Justin made another face that earned him another light punch to the arm as Clay sat up. He laughed lightly and then told Clay that his dad was making pancakes and that they really should get downstairs soon if they wanted some. 

“I’m starving,” Clay said, and got up quickly to go to the bathroom and get ready. 

Justin couldn’t help but think about Clay in the shower, and how badly he wanted to touch all that bare skin, and lick up the beads of water there. He thought back to last night in the forest and what Clay had _almost_ said to him in the heat of the moment. Maybe later Justin would suggest to Matt and Lainie that they go have a date night. And maybe Justin would convince Clay they both needed another shower and Justin relished that thought. Then Justin had to quickly push the thoughts away. Or he wouldn’t be at all presentable in front of the Jensens. 

Clay’s shower had been short and soon he was in the bedroom doorway, fully dressed. “Come on,” he said, before taking off down the stairs. Justin was about to follow when he saw his backpack with a pocket unzipped. A piece of paper was sticking out. He quickly shoved it back into the pocket and zipped it up. Then he ran after Clay, the scent of breakfast suddenly impossible to ignore. 

Now that things were back to normal with Clay, and hopefully better than ever with the Jensens, Justin felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, off his chest, allowing him to breathe. 

But he couldn’t help but think about the pamphlets in his backpack that the guidance counsellor had given him. He really wanted to talk to Clay about it, but he hadn’t gotten the chance yet with things being so shaky. Now though… he was excited and nervous. He didn’t think it should be a big deal, but he couldn’t help feel like it was. And although he knew, in theory, that Clay wouldn’t laugh at him and think he was ridiculous and stupid for thinking about it, Justin couldn’t help but fear that. 

The pamphlets weighed down his backpack like bricks. It was a secret that Justin both wanted to share because he was excited, and also wanted to hide from everyone so that it couldn’t get ruined. He tried to push the thought out of his mind for now, and instead he tried to just enjoy the pancakes in front of him and the huge smile on Clay’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took longer than anticipated again... who's surprised anymore. Thanks for continuing to read and comment!!! <3


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